Footsteps of a Dead Man
by Naisa
Summary: "The sound of the gunshot was swallowed up by the roar of the bomb as it exploded." A story about the possible aftermath of series 1. With people disappearing and new mysterious messages on the walls, things are far from over, a storm is coming...Now re-edited!
1. Footsteps of a Dead Man

_Greetings fellow Sherlock fans!_

_This is my story about what I think happens at the end of episode 3, series 1, with a new case to work on and ominous footsteps walking through the dark..._

_I wrote this quite a long time ago, but I've decided to re-edit it to improve the plot lines, the spelling etc. I've been thinking about re-editing some of my stories for a while now, and I decided to start with this one, as i must admit this is not the best story I've ever written, so I hope to improve it!_

_I have re-edited and put up the first 6 chapters already, so I hope you enjoy! :)_

_I didn't get very many reviews first time I posted this, so if you could drop me a review once in a while, that would be much appreciated :) I always love to know what you guys think!_

* * *

Footsteps of a Dead Man

The last thing John Watson saw before the bomb exploded was Sherlock standing there, gun in hand, still as a statue but his eyes alive with thoughts as he held the cards of death in his very hand. The smell of the chlorine floated up from the pool and filled John's nostrils. He wondered how Moriarty and Sherlock couldn't hear the loud thudding of his heartbeat, getting louder and louder and faster and faster as the seconds ticked away.

The last thing John Watson felt before the bomb exploded was…nothing, he was so terrified he had gone numb with fear. He had managed to pull himself up from the floor so he was standing, but there was no guarantee that he was standing, he couldn't even feel his feet. A voice in his head had screamed at him to run, but was now drowned out by his numb terror.

There was a click over the sound of John's racing heart as Sherlock released the safety catch on the gun. Moriarty's eyes glinted with pleasure, and he opened his mouth to say something, or perhaps he was just going to give a high pitched, mad laugh.

No one would ever know, because Sherlock had already pulled the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot was swallowed up by the roar of the bomb as it exploded. It was so loud and terrible it was as if a dragon was coming up from hell and breaking out into the Earth. The whole ground shook, John felt himself being lifted easily into the air by the force of the explosion, there wasn't even time to cry out. Bright orange flames filled John's vision before he felt the back of his head collide with something – the floor? The wall? The ceiling? It was impossible to tell, the whole world had turned upside down – then total blackness claimed him and silence took over.

* * *

John thought he had woken up dead, before realising that death probably didn't hurt this much. He ached all over, his head was the worst, he could feel something wet trickling across his forehead over the pain. He managed to work out that it was blood, but that was about all he could understand.

John had no idea of where he was or how he had got there. He lay there on the cold floor, trying to remember what had happened, waiting for his brain to see through the haze that had clouded his mind. There had been an explosion, that much seemed to be obvious. The air was filled with slowly settling smoke and the smell of something that had been badly burnt. Watson was dimly aware of the cuts on his face, neck and hands where the shrapnel had cut into him. There was a ringing in his ears from the blast.

As things seemed to settle down, and the ringing in his ears stopped, John began to grow aware of other things, there was another smell in the room, a strange smell, and yet he recognised it quite well, it was chlorine. That was when things began to make sense, and John began to remember. He was at a swimming pool, and he wasn't the only one, Sherlock had been there too, he was the one who had activated the bomb. There had been someone else in the room as well, someone who had caused Sherlock to blow the place up, but he couldn't remember who that had been. Perhaps it was just his imagination.

The whole place was so silent, John could have been the last person left in the world. Perhaps he was.

It was just as these despairing thoughts began to fill his mind, that John heard the sound of footsteps. They were slow, steady and full of authority, it seemed as if every step the person took he was taking great care to do so, and he was thinking every moment through. John could work out these things even though most of the world still didn't make much sense to him. The footsteps were getting louder, growing closer to where he lay. Maybe it was Sherlock. John opened his mouth to call Sherlock's name, but his lungs were filled with dust and his throat and mouth were bone dry. John started to cough; every movement his lungs made sent spasms of pain through him, but he couldn't stop, he needed to clear his lungs. Watson ignored the pain and focused on Sherlock, who was stepping closer.

Sherlock stopped right in front of where John lay, John couldn't see anything, the world was still filled with smoke, or perhaps his eyes weren't even open, but he knew who was standing there. He tried to speak again, but to no avail, he waited for Sherlock to say something, he always did have something to say, but this time he was silent. John was growing more confused now, shouldn't Sherlock just be a little bit concerned about the fact that his friend was lying on the ground in front of him, hardly moving and probably covered in blood?

He could see a shadow now, looming over him, still and silent. By now John was well aware that something was wrong. There was a click.

Now things were just getting stranger by the second, what was Sherlock playing at? What was that clicking sound? John racked his exhausted brain, trying to remember what that familiar click was. Then he remembered; it was the sound for when the safety catch was released from a gun.

Silence fell again. John was so confused and worried now that he was beginning to grow scared again, this wasn't right, nothing made sense, what the hell was going on?

Suddenly there was the sound of more footsteps, more urgent then the last. And the shadow in front of John's face turned and disappeared. He could hear Sherlock turn calmly and walk away, then the footsteps quickened, breaking almost into a run, and then disappearing. This was getting worse by the second. Why was Sherlock leaving him like this? Was he going to get help? Or was he leaving his friend to die? And who was the other person in the room, who had also broken into a run?

"John? John Watson!" Cried a far too familiar voice, as another figure appeared and bent down beside him.

_Oh, _said the only part of Watson's mind that was able to think clearly. _This isn't right, it appears that either there are two Sherlocks, or you've gone mad._

"I prefer the latter." Watson mumbled to himself.

"What?" Said the voice, which was full of panic and confusion. A cold hand touched the side of his neck, searching for a pulse. "John can you hear me?"

"Sherlock?" Watson finally managed to break through the fog obscuring his vision; he opened his eyes wide and he could see clearly.

Sherlock Holmes was bending right over him, his face filling John's vision. His blue eyes were full of fear, something Watson had never seen before. The hard mask seemed to have melted away, and all Sherlock's feelings could be seen clearly, Watson had never seen him look so worried. Sherlock's face was pale, more pale than usual, there were cuts on his face and his hair was dripping wet.

"Why are you wet?" John asked, his voice sounded hoarse and weak.

"I, err, I went for a swim." Sherlock replied, he seemed a little confused, as if he had been expecting John to say something a little more intelligent, despite everything that had happened.

"You went for a swim?"

"We're next to a swimming pool."

"Yes I can remember that," John said, a little irritated. "Why did you go for a swim?"

"Well, I was on fire a little bit." Sherlock replied awkwardly.

"You were on fire!" John tried to shout, but his voice was still frustratingly weak. He jerked his head up to try and get a better view of Sherlock, but the whole world lurched as he did so and became blurry.

"Ssh, calm down, it was only a little bit. Just my clothes really. Other than that I'm all right." Sherlock tried to assure him.

Suddenly John remembered something, or rather someone. That annoying, high pitched voice, the normal looking person who had the mind of an evil genius, or a mad man, and liked to play games with people and bombs…

"Where's Moriarty?" He demanded.

Sherlock went silent for a few moments, frozen to the spot by the question. Then his face became hard again; his eyes focused on something far away and full of a sudden hatred.

"Moriarty is dead." He replied harshly.

"Oh," said John, still confused. "Is there anyone else here?"

"No, the gunmen fled." Sherlock told him.

"Right," John tried to nod, but that made the world spin. He couldn't remember any gunmen, but Sherlock looked worried enough without him knowing that, but if there was no one else here, who did the other footsteps belong to, that shadow? That click, that was the most worrying thing of all. John went silent for a moment, as he tried to make sense of everything.

"John!" Sherlock almost shouted suddenly, the hardness in his eyes; face and voice had vanished once more.

"What?" John asked, irritated.

"You have to stay awake for me."

"I was—" but then John stopped himself. As he had been thinking his vision had begun to fade again. He was sinking into darkness without even realising. Perhaps he _was_ having trouble staying awake; he did take a nasty knock to the head, and he did feel exhausted, to him, sleep seemed to be the best thing to do…

"Watson! What did I just say!"

"Oh, sorry," John quickly opened his eyes again.

"We have to get you out of here." Said Sherlock quickly, before he suddenly began feeling John's arms, and then his legs.

"Sherlock! What the hell are you doing!" John demanded, trying to kick Sherlock off him.

"Just checking if anything's broken." Sherlock explained, avoiding John's foot quite easily.

"I can do that myself thank you, I am a Doctor." Watson replied, not bothering to hide his irritation. "I'm fine Sherlock, there's nothing wrong with me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"How many fingers can you see?" Sherlock held his hand up to John's face, it took him a little while to focus on it, he still felt dizzy, the world kept on tipping at odd angles.

"Three?" He decided after a pause.

Sherlock glared, "you halved the number you saw didn't you?"

"People don't have six fingers on each hand." John snapped, then decided that this wasn't helping his argument that there wasn't anything wrong with him. "I just bumped my head that's all, I'll be fine, just give me a moment."

Sherlock was still glaring, and for a few moments John felt a little guilty. He didn't like lying to his friend. He knew that several minutes had passed since the explosion for him to have become fine, and yet he was still lying on the floor and the world still couldn't decide which way was the right way up. There was even a possibility of him hallucinating, he had heard footsteps and seen a figure, he was sure of it, but Sherlock had seen nothing, there was no one else there.

Suddenly Sherlock looked up and glanced around the room, his worried look broke off John's chain of thought.

"What is it?" He asked.

"We can't stay here any more, I need to get you out of here." Sherlock said hurriedly.

"Holmes I've just hit my head pretty hard, do you really think that's a good idea?" _There could also be something else other than the bumped head that we don't know about yet. _Said John's medical mind, and he swallowed worriedly, but something else distracted him. "Can I smell something burning?"

"Yes, that's why we have to go." Said Sherlock.

"What can catch fire in a swimming pool?" Smoke was slowly filling Watson's vision again, though this time it was real smoke.

"Well, when there's a bomb, quite a lot…" Sherlock replied before he began to help John off the floor. He was surprisingly strong; he literally picked him up, much to John's annoyance and embarrassment. "Can you stand?" He asked.

"I don't know," John admitted, he was too busy trying to stop the world spinning round so fast, he felt like he was going to be sick.

Sherlock helped John set his feet firmly on the ground, but still holding onto his friend's shoulders just in case he couldn't hold himself up. As soon as Sherlock let go John's feet fell from underneath with a shock of pain and surprise. Sherlock quickly grabbed onto his arm to stop him from falling.

"OK, maybe I can't." John told Sherlock as calmly as he could.

"Don't worry, I'll help you, we just need to get out of here." Sherlock said, "the last thing you need is to have your lungs filled with smoke."

John couldn't agree more.

As Sherlock helped Watson out the room he turned his head to look at what they were leaving behind. 'What' was probably the best way to describe the room and the swimming pool. Half the ceiling had fallen down, the whole place was filled with rubble and there was what looked like a crater carved out into the floor where the bomb had been lying. The swimming pool was barley visible underneath the debry, the dirt and dust was beginning to make the water turn grey. Smoke was slowly filling the room, behind the rubble John could just make out orange flames licking away at the sides of the wall.

They made it out into the corridor, away from the rubble and the smoke and the flames. It was lighter here, but silent again, the air tasted clean and there were no longer any unpleasant smells. John used the wall to hold himself up as Sherlock had a quick glance around, taking everything in.

"Wait here," Sherlock told John, glancing up at the walls and ceiling around them.

"Where are you going?"

"To take a look around, the last thing we want is a gunmen to shoot us on the way out the building. Just wait there, the police will be here soon. I just want to make sure there's no one else."

"Right," John nodded, and then regretted doing the simple action immediately, as his vision took him on another roller coaster ride. Was this really wise to leave someone with head injuries alone in a strange place? John would have pointed this out, but Sherlock had already disappeared around a corner.

John sank to the floor, unable to hold himself up any more. He could feel his legs properly to the first time in what felt like months, and he didn't like the pain that raced up them. He glanced around but he could do nothing but sit still and wait for Sherlock to return. Now there was more light he could get a proper look at himself. John could feel a cut across the top of his forehead, and there was a nasty bloody patch at the top of his head. There were scratches all over his hands, but that was nothing serious. His shoes and trousers were stained with blood; that was slightly more serious. He tried to think of the moment that the bomb exploded, had he perhaps collided with something that had caused a great gash on his leg? But he couldn't remember anything, just the burning heat from the explosion and the strange sensation of being pulled through the air by some invisible force.

After a few moments exhaustion took over, despite the fact that John had done very little. He put his head back and closed his eyes, knowing full well he shouldn't, but who was going to tell him off for doing so? The wall? He had made it out that room alive, and that was the most important thing. For a few terrible moments when he was in that room he thought he wouldn't survive to see another day. But these thoughts were sending back unpleasant memories, John decided the best thing to do was to keep still and not think of anything.

That was when he heard the footsteps again.

The sound of them echoed eerily around the walls, John could tell they were the same footsteps that he had heard before. They certainly weren't Sherlock's; they walked with calm authority, but slightly quicker than before. John felt a shiver run down his spine, he knew perfectly well this time that something was wrong. He kept his eyes closed, as if somehow if he couldn't see the footsteps, they might fade away into nothing, the footsteps of a dead man. There was a click of the safety catch on a gun, the same click he had heard before.

John dragged his eyes open, and looked up defiantly at Moriarty, who stood over him with a gun in his hand, and a cruel smile on his face.

"Really thought you could just walk out of here after all that?" Moriarty asked in his light, annoying voice.

"You should be dead." Said John darkly.

"And so should you Doctor Watson," Moriarty replied, his voice was calm yet dripping with malice at the same time. He bent down so he was at the same level as John. The smile was still there, and a high pitched chuckle was building up in his throat. He held the gun loosely in his hand, as if it was a toy.

Was he trying to kill John? He wasn't going to show that he was afraid.

"Then kill me."

"No, not today. I've made up my decision, for real this time." Moriarty added, seeing the disbelieving look in John's eyes. "And I'd hate to think what Sherlock would say when he comes back to find his only friend lying in a puddle of blood on the floor, though I would love to see the look on his face. I don't think he would stop running after me and that would really ruin my plans."

"I'm dreaming." John told himself.

"Well yes actually you are, but my footsteps are real."

"You're not making any sense." Figures of the imagination didn't often seem so real, or tell you that you were dreaming, and yet other was no other explanation.

"Dreams tend not to John. And it doesn't help that you've got that nasty bump on your head. Sherlock may think I'm dead but I am very much alive, and I'll be seeing you too soon." Moriarty stood up, "oh and don't bother trying to tell him that I'm still alive, he won't believe you. He'll just think you've gone mad, you wouldn't be the first one though, if you did."

"You're not making any sense!" John shouted at Moriarty as he walked away.

"Never mind then darling." Moriarty's high-pitched voice replied. "I think that's the least of your worries at the moment. But don't worry, I'll see you soon. Bye bye!"

Moriarty walked away, disappearing from sight. John slept on, forgetting about the conversation he had just had, and whether he had really been awake to witness what he had heard, or if it was a mixture of dreams reality. The sound of the sirens would soon awaken him, and Sherlock would come back, oblivious to what John had just experienced. John would say nothing, but he would never forget the sound of the footsteps. He would wait for them for nights to come, wait for death to come knocking, and perhaps this time he wouldn't be so lucky.


	2. Invitation

Chapter 2

Invitation

The sky was the colour of steel as endless grey clouds rolled over it. It would be impossible to see the sun on this dull London morning, and yet the air was warm. The weather had been like this for days now, everyone was waiting for the rains to come and perhaps even a roll of thunder, but the sky was silent. It was as if heaven was waiting for something to happen before they opened.

The mood of the sky was almost reflected by the mood of John Watson, who was about to be awoken in a rather unpleasant way.

_Bang!_

The sudden, loud noise woke John with a start, his eyes snapped open as his heart skipped a few beats with surprise. At first he had no idea what it was, and for a moment he panicked, thinking there had been an explosion. But then he heard it again at let out an annoyed sigh.

_Bang!_

Sherlock was bored.

_Bang!_

Why he wanted to take it out on the walls was a complete mystery though.

_Bang!_

And at seven o'clock in the morning

_Bang!_

On a Saturday,

_Bang!_

Miss Hudson was not going to like this.

_Bang!_

In fact, John himself didn't particularly like it either,

_Bang!_

"Sherlock!" John yelled at the door, his patience becoming thin and a headache developing already. For a few moments, there was complete silence, perhaps Sherlock had listened to him for once, and was actually going to—

_Bang!_

Perhaps not. John sighed and sat up slowly, rubbing the forehead with his forefinger and thumb, soaking in the few moments of peace and quiet before Sherlock started attacking the wall again. This wasn't a good start to the day.

It took John longer than usual to get out of bed and get dressed, perhaps because he wasn't looking forward to what was going to be waiting on the other side of the door. It was one thing waking up to the sound of someone shooting your walls, it was another thing to open your bedroom door and get shot in the face. John sighed and opened his door to peer out at what lay before him.

Sherlock was pacing impatiently up and down the living room, gun in hand, every now and then he turned and shot at the wall. There was a loud blast from the gun as the bullet imbedded itself into the wall that seemed to shake at the force of the bullet and the immense noise that it created in such a small space. Gingerly, John stepped into the living room, and stood in the corner watching Sherlock, who didn't seem to register that someone else was in the room.

"Sherlock," said John, just as Sherlock turned to shoot the wall again, he tried not to lose his temper so early in the day. "What are you doing?"

"Bored." Was all Sherlock replied, not bothering to even look at John. He turned and fired at the wall again; once, twice, three times.

"Yes I've noticed. But what I can never understand is why you're taking it out on the wall again!" John snapped. "Do you have nothing better to do?"

"No, what do other people do when they're bored?" Sherlock asked, lowering the gun for a few moments and glancing at John.

"Normal people," John replied, making sure he emphasised the word 'normal' "go and find something to do when they're bored. Is there nothing taking up your interest at the moment?"

"No." Sherlock replied curtly, "not since—" he stopped himself suddenly and looked down at the floor, unwilling to continue.

It had been six weeks since John and Sherlock had been at the swimming pool, faced with the infamous Moriaty. John thought he was going to die that day, and the fact that he hadn't was a miracle, the trouble was, he didn't believe in miracles any more. He watched Sherlock carefully as he began pacing up and down the room again. Sherlock had never given away what had happened to him in the explosion, no one could escape that unscathed. All John knew, or could guess, was that Sherlock had thrown himself in the pool as soon as the bomb had exploded, that would have saved him from the worst, but he still managed to walk out there as if nothing had happened. John had noticed however that Sherlock had been walking with a slight limp ever since the explosion, which he was trying hard to conceal. John had spent two days in hospital, despite the fact that he kept on trying to tell everyone that he was fine, had Sherlock stayed in hospital as well? He spent a lot of time by his bed side, which surprised John, he wouldn't see him as the patience to sit in a hard chair all day staring at the wall silently, only speaking to snap at a few of the nurses.

There had only been one conversation John and Sherlock had had about the explosion, and that was when they were leaving the hospital. John took with him a bump on the head, which was still sore, and eighteen stitches on his leg, but it could have been a lot worse. However the events of what happened that day was a mystery to him, in fact they still were. The only things he remembered were the few moments before the explosion, and a little of it after. But after that, he didn't even remember being carried out the building.

"How did we survive then?" He had asked Sherlock as the TAXI took them back to Baker Street.

Sherlock had shrugged. "The police say the bomb didn't activate properly, if it had the entire building would have been turned into nothing but a small pile of rubble." He didn't look at John; he just gazed out the window. "It was a lot smaller than the other bombs as well, even if it did go off like it should have, the damage wouldn't have been that serious compared to the others. We were lucky."

Lucky. Sherlock didn't often use the word 'lucky' when discussing a case, everything had a reason, but he preferred to settle everything down to luck when it came to the explosion. He was lucky to have survived, John was unlucky to get caught in the blast.

John thought he knew why Sherlock preferred to stare out the window than look at his friend and talk about luck rather than theories and facts. He blamed himself for what had happened. The whole thing had let Sherlock's feelings get the better of him, and he refused to let such a thing happen again, or show that he did have feelings. But he wasn't the only one who could read people, John knew he felt something, and he knew he blamed himself.

"If it hadn't been for luck," Sherlock continued in a low murmur as if deep in thought, "we would all be dead."

"But they never found out what happened to Moriaty." John pointed out.

"Moriaty is dead," Sherlock said sternly and so quickly John hardly had time to finish his sentence.

But they had never found a body and Sherlock didn't mention anything about Moriarty or the bomb after that brief conversation. John said nothing either, but often wondered if he should tell Sherlock about the footsteps, but he always decided against it. He didn't want to sound like he was mad. Perhaps he had dreamt it all, but the footsteps were the most distinctive thing he could remember. Why was that?

John pushed all these thoughts and memories to the back of his head, and turned his attention back to Sherlock, who had started to shoot the wall again.

"Sherlock—"

_Bang!_

"When was the last time—"

_Bang!_

"You actually—"

_Bang!_

"Stop shooting the walls when I'm trying to say something!" John yelled. He took a deep breath. "When was the last time you actually stepped out of this house?"

There was a pause. "Three weeks," Sherlock estimated, shrugging his shoulders.

"Three weeks!" John repeated in shock. "You need to get out of this house, at least to get some fresh air."

"I'm fine and the air's just as fresh out there as it is in here." Sherlock said, sitting down heavily in a chair and began to reload his gun.

"That's not the point," John began, but then he sighed and shook his head. It was almost impossible to persuade Sherlock to do something; he needed an excuse to get Sherlock out the house. "Is there nothing else for you to do?" He asked, snatching the gun from Sherlock before he could finish reloading it.

"Not really no," Sherlock said, standing up and trying to snatch the gun away from John, but he had already thrown it in the bin. Sherlock didn't look impressed at all, but John no longer cared, he stood between Sherlock and the bin, but pretended he didn't know he was blocking Sherlock's way.

Something lying in the bin beside the gun caught John's attention, he hadn't noticed it before, but it must have been lying in there for at least a day. It looked innocent enough, it was just a torn envelope, but it had his name on it. Carefully, John bent down and pulled it out the bin.

"What's this?" He demanded, turning to Sherlock.

"Nothing," An already sulking Sherlock replied, he hardly glanced at what John was holding in his hand.

"It's got my name on it," John continued, there was a slip of folded paper inside the envelope, once more addressed to him. John's confusion quickly turned to annoyance. "Have you been opening my mail again?"

"I think you'll find that what's inside was for both of us." Sherlock told John as he began to search for his violin.

"That's not the point," John snapped back, but looking at the paper he saw that it was addressed to both of them. It looked like an invitation.

He unfolded the paper and read the few words that it said, suddenly everything made sense.

"Oh of course, it's from Mycroft, that's why you threw it in the bin." John grumbled. "You could have told me he had sent us something anyway."

Sherlock was no longer listening; he had found his violin and was now plucking tunelessly at the strings, staring at the wall now covered in bullet holes. John stared at him for a few moments, waiting for a response, getting nothing; he turned back to the invitation.

"He wants us to come to some sort of celebration, a party, something to do with the home office." John continued, as he tried to hide a smile. There was an excuse to get Sherlock out the house after all.

"Which is a perfectly good reason for us not to go." Sherlock had been listening after all. "We have nothing to do with the government, nothing to do with his work. He knows we won't go."

"We?" John repeated. "Since when did I say I didn't want to go? Doesn't it make you wonder why he wants us to come if we have nothing to do with him? He wants something but for some reason he won't come and ask us personally. He wants us to come to a certain place at a certain time. Don't you want to know what he wants?"

"I'd rather stay here." Sherlock replied curtly after a brief pause of the violin. He knew John had a point, but he had decided to ignore it.

"And more importantly, it will get you out of the house and it will give you something to do." John said as if Sherlock hadn't spoken. "It's tomorrow, I'm guessing you don't have anything planned."

Sherlock didn't reply, he had decided to stop listening again, he went back to violin.

"You've been wanting to do something and here's your opportunity." John told him. Still getting no reply, he shrugged. "Well I'll be going anyway, so you can stay here all day tomorrow if you want. I don't care."

With that, John turned and left the room. Sherlock thumped down his violin with a sigh. He couldn't help breaking into a smile, John had been living with him for far too long, and he knew what to say to get him out the house. As soon as the door shut behind John, Sherlock stood up swiftly and went to the bin, fishing out his gun. All that John had said was true, and it was about time there was something to keep Sherlock's mind occupied. He put the gun in his pocket; he had a feeling he'd need it soon.


	3. Phone Call

Chapter 3

Phone Call

The invitations that Mycroft had sent Sherlock and John were sent two days before he found it lying in the bin. The day between sending the letters and John receiving his, two very important and strange things happened that would change lives.

The first thing didn't seem mysterious at all. It was just a young woman sitting alone in a smart hotel with a mobile phone to her ear, waiting for someone to answer her call. She sat in the middle of her room, gazing out of the huge windows that took up the whole of one wall. The windows showed a fantastic view of London, surrounded by grand skyscrapers, with the little people and little cars far down below.

The young woman's phone had been ringing for almost a minute, but she wasn't about to give up, she wasn't that sort of person. Finally the ringing stopped, but it was a few more seconds before someone spoke to her down the phone.

"Hello?" Said the nervous voice of a man in his mid thirties. If you saw this man you wouldn't think he was the type of person to sound nervous, he was more the type of man who enthusiastically started fights whenever the opportunity arose, and he always won. He was huge and built out of nothing but muscle, but at the moment, all his muscles was trembling with fear.

"Garrison," the young woman spoke calmly down the phone, at the same time she was smiling, revealing chalk white teeth underneath her blood red lips. She was not afraid of this man. "It's about time."

"Miss Adler," the man called Garrison gabbled, he should have felt relieved, there were worst people who could have called him, but he still felt nervous. "I didn't expect you to ring," he began.

"Of course you did, did you really think I was just going to let you run away?" The young woman replied harshly, but she leant back comfortably in her leather armchair as if she hadn't a care in the world. Her finger twisted round a lock of her dark brown hair. She waited patiently for Garrison's reply.

"What do you want?" Garrison asked eventually, as if he had finally realised this phone conversation wasn't going to end without something being said.

"I want my money back." Said the young woman, leaning forward in her chair again. Her dark eyes now told of the frustration she felt for Garrison. "Do you really think it was charity? I need that money back, now."

"How much?"

"One hundred thousand." The young woman's lips curled into a smile again, but it wasn't a pleasant one. A snake gives the same smile when it is about to devour a helpless mouse.

"One hundred—" Garrison began, but was too shocked to carry on. He quickly gathered his wits. "We didn't agree to that amount before."

"Then why did you ask just now?" The young woman laughed. "You were taking too long so I added interest."

"I cannot afford that amount." Garrison suddenly didn't sound scared any more, he sounded annoyed, annoyed that he was being played with by a stupid woman. He can't be treated like this; he had enough on his mind.

"You said you would Garrison." The young woman snapped, her smile disappeared once more. "I gave you plenty of time."

"Yes I know," Garrison sighed. "But I don't have the money, I'll pay you back as soon as I can."

"I need that money as well Garrison!" The woman almost shouted. "It's my money, I'm entitled to get it whenever I want."

There was a short pause. "I can give you half," Garrison offered reluctantly.

"I don't want half." The young woman almost laughed, as if it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. "If this is how you treat someone who had done you a favour, I won't bother next time."

"You have to understand Miss, I'm in trouble." Garrison tried to explain in a panicked voice.

But Miss Adler showed no mercy. "I know you're in trouble," she replied harshly, "that's why I gave you the money in the first place, that's why I offered to find someone to help you."

"No, I'm in more trouble than you realise." Garrison paused, his voice suddenly changed as if realisation had dawned over him. "No one can help me now."

"Then why am I wasting my time with you?" The young woman asked bitterly.

There was silence on the other end of the phone, apart from the low, panicked breathing of a man who had gone far beyond the word 'trouble'. It seemed that he hadn't even heard the young woman speak. The young woman sighed impatiently, she didn't seem to care about what was troubling Garrison so much it struck fear into his heart.

"Answer me Garrison!" She snapped suddenly after the silence started to stretch into the minutes.

"I, I'm sorry Miss Adler." Garrison stuttered. Pure panic was now clear in his voice, as if he had just seen or heard something that had made his world fall apart. "I have to go."

"You can't just—" the young woman began, but Garrison had already hung up, in fact, it sounded like Garrison had dropped the phone.

The young woman stared at her mobile for a few moments, a look of surprise on her face as if she had never been hung up on before. She then cursed a few times and threw it down on the carpeted floor. If Garrison thought he could hide from her, he was wrong.

The young woman sighed and glanced down at Mycroft's invitation, which was lying on the glass table next to her chair, she gave a sly smile. Oh yes, she knew exactly who would help her find Garrison.

Letting out another, but this time a fairly relaxed, sigh, the young woman leaned back in her chair and watched the grey clouds rolling over London. Even this dull sight didn't dampen her oddly bright mood. It looked like a storm was coming, but it was highly unlikely that it should be something she should worry about.

* * *

The second mysterious thing that happened was a lot simpler, a lot different, but a lot stranger. A little girl wandered away from her mummy and daddy to look for her lost teddy. And she never came back home.


	4. Irene Adler

Chapter 4

Irene Adler

John stood at the entrance to the Hall, admiring the size of it and the design. It must have been at least a hundred years old; the ceiling was made out of oak and had been carved into beautiful floral patterns stretching from one end of the Hall to the other. The windows were old fashioned and the huge wooden door that stood at one end looked older than the entire building. The building was in fact a smart hotel, and it had obviously been modernised since it had been built. The floor was made of polished wood and chandeliers hang from the ceiling, but light bulbs lit up the room, not candles. No matter how impressive the building was, John wasn't quite sure why he had come here.

The Hall had at least a hundred people in it, all finely dressed for whatever occasion this was for, they made John stand out, but in a bad way. John had tried to dress suitably for the occasion, the problem was, he had no idea what the occasion was going to be. He simply dressed in the best clothes he could find: black trousers, black suit and plain white shirt, (trying to persuade Sherlock to dress into something smart had turned out to be an impossible challenge). He thought he hadn't looked too bad, but what the other people were wearing made him look like a tramp.

John barely knew any of the people he was sharing the room with. He recognised some politicians and one or two journalists gathered round a long table at one end of the Hall that was piled with food, but that was all. He wondered why he had been invited here, perhaps there was nothing mysterious about this place after all, but no one looked suspicious at all, apart from Sherlock. This brought another question to his mind: where was Sherlock? John glanced around and quickly spotted Sherlock standing in the corner lecturing an irritated young woman in glasses; she looked like a journalist, about some politician who had gone missing. It seemed to be quickly turning into an argument, not wanting to create any trouble after being there for just five minutes; John quickly went over to Sherlock.

"I'm just saying, it's obvious that he moved to Spain after his wife found out about his affair. He took his passport, and just before he went missing he went to the bank to change some money. Even someone like _you _should notice that! And the tie he was wearing shows that—"

"Thank you Sherlock I think she gets the point." John butted in quickly before Sherlock could continue and the journalist could retaliate. He turned to the journalist, "sorry about him, I forgot to lock him in his cage this morning." He muttered, and then grabbed Sherlock by the arm and dragged him off. Leaving an annoyed and slightly confused journalist behind.

"I hadn't finished talking to her!" Sherlock snapped.

"You have now. Can you go anywhere without embarrassing me?" John asked irritably.

"I was merely making a clear point to her after she made a huge mistake in one of her articles," Sherlock explained. "and a grammatical error," he seemed particularly irritated with that.

"How did you know that she had written an article?" John demanded.

"Because there was her name and picture next to it, don't you ever read the newspaper?"

"Obviously in not as much detail as you," John grumbled, pulling Sherlock roughly through the throng of people, trying to find somewhere quiet where Sherlock wouldn't cause any trouble.

"I don't understand why we're here in the first place. We've been here for long enough, can't we just go home?" Sherlock was beginning to sound like a whining child. John considered if keeping him in a cage was a good idea.

"No," John glanced at his watch. "We've only been here for fifteen minutes, we came all this way, I want to make this worth while. We're staying for as long as I can bear it."

"Well I can't bear it any more. I don't care how far we came; I'll pay for the TAXI back. Now can't we just leave before we see—"

"Sherlock, I thought I heard you." Called a voice behind Sherlock.

"Mycroft," Sherlock gave a heavy sigh, and turned around to face his brother.

"I thought you'd probably come, you can't just leave an invitation, even if it is from me." Mycroft smiled at Sherlock's scowling face.

"Err, now we've seen you," John said quickly before Sherlock could think of something rude to say. "Perhaps you can explain why you invited us in the first place."

"A very good question. In fact I was actually asked to send you an invitation from someone who wanted to meet you two." Mycroft explained, and his brow furrowed for a few moments and he lost his friendly smile, showing that he was slightly confused as to why someone wanted to see them. "She says she needs your help."

"Who would this 'she' be?" Sherlock demanded.

"That would be me." Said a young woman who had just walked up behind Mycroft.

Both John and Sherlock were taken aback by who now stood in their presence. Many of the people at the part were young and beautiful, or were old and tried desperately to keep their good looks through botox, but this woman was stunning. She was tall and elegant and wore a long, glittering, black dress that hugged her curves; a small black shoulder bag sat on her hip. Her eyes, surrounded by long, black eyelashes, were bright and beautiful, yet dark and mysterious at the same time. Her flawless skin was slightly tanned from when she had been abroad, and the only jewellery she wore was a single gold bangle on her wrist. Her dark brown, curled hair was done up in a loose bun, a few trails of it hung down and traced her shoulders. The young woman smiled at Sherlock and John, showing bright white teeth underneath her blood red lips. She stood forward and introduced herself.

"Miss Irene Adler." She said simply, holding out an elegant hand.

"Nice to meet you," John said after Sherlock didn't react, he shook her hand but felt slightly embarrassed, as if it was wrong to be so close to such a beautiful woman. "I'm Doctor John Watson."

"Mycroft's told me a little about you," Irene said, flashing him a dazzling smile. John glanced over her shoulder and saw that Mycroft had gone, obviously leaving them to become acquainted. "And I have read your blogs, such fascinating tales." She continued.

"Thank you," John muttered, still feeling a little embarrassed and trying desperately not to blush.

"And I know who you are," Irene said, turning to Sherlock. "You're Sherlock Holmes, and you're just the man I wanted to see."

"Really?" Sherlock kept his face impassive, it was the only thing he had said to this woman so far.

"Yes, I'm afraid I need your help."

"What can I do for you?" Sherlock asked, remaining surprisingly polite, but his face remained mainly unemotional, apart from a flash of curiosity and interest that appeared in his eyes at the word 'help'.

"I'm looking for someone, and I was told that you were just the person who could help me find him." Irene explained.

"I'll do my best." Sherlock said. John tried to hide his shock, usually the answer to a question like that would be "of course I can find him, who do you think I am?" When was the last time Sherlock had been modest?

"Good," Irene smiled; she delicately pulled out folded sheets of paper and handed them to Sherlock. "His name's Garrison Smith," she explained. "Though I doubt that's his real name. He was born in January 1985 in the East End of London, where he spent most of his life. His parents are probably dead, and I don't know if he has any other members of family or friends. He hasn't had many jobs that I know of. He lives alone in a London flat not far from here, but I haven't spoken to him in two days, and I haven't seen him in over a week."

"Well then it sounds like he's hiding from someone." Sherlock said, more to himself than to anyone else as he flipped through the pieces of paper Irene had given to him. They contained the main detail about Garrison Smith, including a picture of a rather small looking and untidy apartment and a picture of a large, rough looking man with a bald scalp and a tattoo of a snake on his neck. Sherlock stared at Garrison's face for a few moments, who glared right back from the page, before turning back to Irene. "He doesn't look like a man who would hide from someone like a coward. You are the only person who's looking for him and wants something from him. May I suggest that you are the person he's hiding from?"

"If only things could be that simple," Irene gave laugh that seemed to sparkle as much as her dress, but then she became serious again, although her smile still remained. "He mainly kept himself to himself, though I think he may be in a spot of trouble with a lot of people, not many liked him. He may be hiding from me, but he's probably also hiding from others at the same time."

"Why do you want to find him?" Sherlock was becoming intrigued now, there were so many questions he wanted answered about this man he had never met, and about the beautiful woman standing in front of him. But he kept his tone bored and limited the number of questions. "What do you need from him?"

"Oh, he owes me a little rent money that I lent him when he was in a spot of financial trouble." Irene explained as if it was nothing, looking down and twisting her gold band, she looked up at Sherlock again. "But I'm the one who needs that money now, and suddenly he's gone. I knew he was probably in more trouble than he would tell me, but I wouldn't think it would make him disappear. When I spoke to him last, he sounded scared, an emotion I didn't think he was capable of. I thought I would never say this, but I'm worried about him, and I want to find him before anyone else does."

Sherlock raised his eyebrow as she said this, but said nothing. He simply let out a low "hmm" of thought. He stared at her, unblinking for a while. It soon became obvious that this was making Irene feel uncomfortable, she gave him a slightly shier smile and her confident eyes flickered with doubt for a few moments.

"So will you find him for me?" She asked after a few more seconds of silence, as Sherlock continued to stare at her.

"I'll do my best." Was all that he said.

"Here's a little something to make sure you will." Said Irene, breaking into another dazzling smile as she subtly passed a check from her shoulder bag into Sherlock's hand. "I have your number, I'll call in a few days to see how you're getting on. When you find him I'll give the rest of your payment."

Sherlock took the check from Irene, but he said nothing. His eyes were close to shock, he seemed lost for words, and this surprised John more than seeing the beautiful Irene Adler and hearing all that she needed to say. When did Sherlock ever become lost for words?

"It's been an honour to meet you gentlemen." Irene said, flashing the two of them a dazzling smile after she realised that she would get no response from Sherlock. "Good luck with the search, I'm sure it won't be too troubling for men as intelligent as yourselves." Another shocking smile. "Now I must get back to the party. I'll see you soon."

And with that, Irene Adler turned and left the two men standing there, watching her go. Both seemed lost for words, she smiled to herself as she disappeared into the group of people, it was always something she seemed to be very good at, making men speechless.


	5. New Challenge

Chapter 5

New Challenge

"Well that solves something Science has been pondering over for many years." John said finally into the silence that had filled the TAXI ever since they had stepped into it.

"What's that?" Sherlock asked in a slightly bored and irritated voice. He was gazing out the car window like he had been doing for the last ten minutes.

"You're not gay." John couldn't help breaking into a smile as he said this; he found the whole thing incredibly amusing.

"What are you talking about?" Sherlock demanded, turning and glaring at John.

"Irene Adler."

"What about her?"

"You took a bit of a shine to her didn't you?" John grinned again, nudging Sherlock with his elbow as if it would help emphasise his point.

"I still have no idea what you're talking about." Sherlock said, who had gone back to staring out the window again.

The view outside was just the same London than it ever would be at half past ten in the evening. The same lights from the City that never slept were glowing in the darkness. Almost guiding the TAXI along the roads, through the streets. But tonight the night seemed blacker than usual, as the ever-gathering clouds over London didn't rest during the dark, and they blocked out the moon and the stars. It made the interior of the dull and old cab warm and welcoming.

"Oh come on Sherlock you know perfectly well what I'm talking about." Said John, a little irritated.

"I do not."

"All right then, tell me something about her."

"Who?"

"Irene Adler!" John sighed, he knew perfectly well that Sherlock was trying to draw out the conversation as long as possible so John wouldn't get the response he wanted. "What do you know about her?"

"Well," Sherlock hesitated and thought hard. "Her name's Irene."

"Really!" John said with fake enthusiasm, he sighed. "Tell me something I _don't_ know about her Sherlock."

"How am I meant to know all about the woman when I've only just met her?"

"Sherlock, you can work out someone's life history after you've been in the same room with them for five minutes. Believe me I know, and that's why no one likes you. But all you can tell me about Irene Adler is her name?"

"She's a hard person to read."

"Well it certainly looked like you were trying very hard, you were taking everything in. All you could do when she was talking to us was stare at her, you couldn't take your eyes off her, you hardly blinked. And when she walked away you couldn't stop staring at her ass—"

"John you are mistaken," Sherlock said quickly before his friend could continue, he was still staring out the window. "I was merely interested in what she had to say, nothing else."

"It's a shame, you're obviously not her type. She likes to go after men who disappear at the first sign of trouble. You run towards it."

"I don't care about who Irene Adler is, I'm just interested in what she wants." Sherlock snapped harshly, hoping that this would end the conversation, it didn't.

"Well I don't believe you," John continued. "I think you couldn't stop staring at her because you've never encountered anyone who could make your heart rate double just by laughing. As soon as she went away you wanted to leave, but on the way out you couldn't stop looking for her, and you've been staring out the window the whole journey because you're trying so hard not to think of her." John folded his arms triumphantly; knowing he was right and had just won an argument before it had even begun.

Sherlock said nothing.

"See, you don't like it when someone reads your mind do you?" Said John.

"She said she would ring me, how could she ring me? How did she get my number?" Sherlock said to himself, acting as if John hadn't spoken.

"Fine ignore me," John grunted, annoyed. "I know I'm right though." He mumbled.

Sherlock didn't reply. Silence fell again in the TAXI; John found it hard to believe that things could be more frustrating with Sherlock when he _wasn't _talking. He was pondering on asking Sherlock if he was still going to pay for the TAXI fare when the consulting detective broke the silence first:

"I do know one thing though," he said.

"Know what?" John asked, slightly confused. He assumed Sherlock was still on the subject of Irene Adler.

"She was lying about the money Garrison Smith owes her."

"How do you know?"

"She kept firm eye contact with us until I asked her about the money, that was the only time she broke her gaze. She was confident about talking to us, but suddenly she became nervous, she couldn't look me in the eye and she was twisting her bangle with unease, yet she was trying to hide it and act as if nothing was bothering her. All are clear signs that she had lied to us."

"So you think this may be more than a little rent money?"

"Of course, no one hires a professional to go looking for a man they hardly know, because he owes them a few hundred pounds." Sherlock point out. "Irene said that he was probably in trouble with a lot of people, perhaps he needed a lot of money to sort out his troubles, and when the money didn't work how many options left were there apart from to run?"

"Does this mean you won't look for him?" John asked, he couldn't help feeling a little disappointed.

"Of course I am, why wouldn't I?"

"Because she lied to you, and we know nothing about this man." John pointed out.

"That just makes things more intriguing." Sherlock said. "We know enough about this man, we know his name, we know where he lives and we know that he's in trouble with someone, perhaps not just Miss Adler. It's serious enough that she would go to us and not the police. She didn't want us to become suspicious, so she arranged to meet us in a public place; a dark alleyway would be a bit too much don't you think? But she was obviously desperate as she was willing to pay a lot of money to have this man found, and she didn't even say dead or alive."

"I think she would prefer alive."

"We have no time to waste then." Sherlock said, a grin slowly growing on his face and enthusiasm bubbling up inside him. He leaned forward so he could speak to the cab driver: "Sorry change of plan, turn around."

"Sir?" The cab driver couldn't help listening to the conversation, but now he was just confused.

"Sherlock what are you playing at?" Asked John, almost as confused as the cab driver.

"We're not going to 22LB Baker Street."

"Why?"

"Why not? I like a new challenge, what's the harm in starting as soon as possible?"

"Sherlock it's nearly eleven o'clock—"

"The first thing to do is go to Mr Smith's apartment," Sherlock said to himself, he seemed to have forgotten that John was there in his rush of excitement. "We can find out what he left behind, that will give us some clues and we can go on from there."

"And of course as soon as you've found this Garrison you can see Irene again. I'm sure you can't _wait _to hear from her again." John teased.

Sherlock didn't reply, he was busy giving the cab driver Garrison Smith's address. The cab driver did a three-point turn and headed in the opposite direction of home, and into the night.


	6. Breaking and Entering

Chapter 6

Breaking and Entering

"Sherlock I'm sure this isn't a very good idea—" John whispered through the darkness.

"No you're right, this is an excellent idea!"

"Sssh! This is breaking and entering!"

"If you don't mind I'm trying my best not to break anything." Sherlock said, not bothering to keep his voice down.

"That's not the—" John sighed, it was far too late to start an argument. "Sherlock, it's almost midnight and I have work tomorrow. Can't we do this some other time?" It seemed to be John's turn to moan, but he didn't particularly care, and it seemed that neither did Sherlock.

The two of them were standing on the first floor of a block of flats; shrouded in darkness. John stood in the black night, looking at the other apartments on either side, waiting for someone to come out and demand what he was doing there. Sherlock was crouching down beside the door that was Garrison's home, trying to unlock it.

"There's nothing to worry about John." Sherlock tried to assure him.

"Well maybe not for you, but if I looked out my window and saw two men breaking into an apartment in the middle of the night, I would call the police."

"I know, why else do you think I want you to keep watch?"

"That doesn't make much difference, I can't see a thing! I don't want to get arrested, you might not care, but I do! Why didn't you ask Irene Adler for a key?"

There was a pause.

"It slipped my mind." Sherlock replied.

"I never realised all it took was for a pretty woman to flicker her eyelashes at you and suddenly you're as dumb as the next man." John tried to strain himself from laughing out loud.

"That's not true, she didn't flicker her eyelashes at me," Sherlock snapped at John in his defence. "And she wasn't just pretty," he murmured to himself.

"What was that?" John asked innocently, but he had heard every word.

"Nothing," Sherlock said quickly.

"She wasn't just pretty?" John repeated. "How would you describe her then? Beautiful? Dazzling? Stunning—"

"I think you should stop thinking about Miss Adler, she's just a distraction like all women." Sherlock snapped, interrupting John's list. "You should start concentrating on what she asked us to do."

"I'm not the one thinking about her all the time, why would I? I've got Susan." John pointed out. "You're the one who's finding her distracting, you can't even open a door."

That touched a nerve. Sherlock suddenly stood up, took a step back and lashed out at the door with his foot. With a loud crunch, which seemed even more deafening in the darkness of the night, the door swung open.

"There you go," Sherlock said with a successful smile, turning to a shocked John. "Door's opened."

"And now this _is _breaking and entering!" He hissed to Sherlock, who had already disappeared into the apartment.

John glanced around nervously, convinced that this would have woken someone up, but the whole world seemed to have fallen silent. Only the distant sound of a dog barking at the moon shrouded with cloud. After another quick look around, John followed Sherlock into the apartment, closing the door behind them.

What waited inside the apartment for them was not a very pleasant sight, and for the first time ever, John considered the flat he shared with Sherlock to be tidy.

Even in the dim light he could see that the whole place was a mess; rubbish lay all over the floor, from old pieces of carpet to empty tins of beans and slowly decaying newspaper. John almost tripped over the clutter; he managed to find a light switch and flicked it so he could see where he was going, and then regretted doing so.

The light gave the dirty walls a yellow colour, but something green was steadily growing in the corners, and there was an unpleasant smell. Sherlock had already disappeared into the apartment; John managed to catch up with him by following the sound of bags of rubbish being kicked out the way. There was only a small gap in the garbage to squeeze through.

"How are we going to find anything in here?" John demanded, getting his foot caught round a plastic bag as he spoke. He kicked at it angrily.

"Well it seems that everything's here from the past three years of his life," Sherlock said, wandering into the kitchen and inspecting the fridge, which was almost as bad as his. There was nothing in it apart from a few cans of bear and half a bottle of milk that had gone lumpy. The cooker that sat underneath another pile of rubbish and looked like it had never been cleaned. Dirty plates overloaded the washing-up sink. "So all we need to do is look for the things that aren't here." He explained.

"Oh yes that's much easier." Said John sarcastically. "I have to admit something Sherlock, I can handle war, I'm fine with dead bodies, but this is disgusting!" He finally kicked the plastic bag off his foot, and watched a rather large spider scuttle under the fridge. "And I thought _you_ were untidy!"

"It seems that there were more things on his mind than keeping the place clean," Sherlock said as he made his way into the living room. He could just make out a coffee table, a few chairs, a chest of draws and a television under the xarnage. There was hardly any room to move.

John stumbled into the living room to find Sherlock sifting through a huge pile of newspapers that was sitting on a coffee table. Finding nothing, he then made his way to the chest of draws. The drawers were full of important documents including checks and bank statements. Sherlock started pulling everything out and dumping the contents on the floor, adding to the mess.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," John warned Sherlock. "There are things living in here." Just as he said this, a rat scuttled over his shoe and he gave a cry of surprise and disgust. Perhaps when they had finished there it would be best if someone came and burnt the whole apartment down.

"I don't think Garrison has lived here in a while." Sherlock said after he had emptied the chest of draws.

"How do you know?"

"Those newspapers only go up to November 2010, after that there aren't any. Garrison must have stopped buying the newspapers or stopped having them delivered to this address. The milk in the fridge must be at least six months old, and everything here is covered in dust." Sherlock explained, "but someone's been here recently. There's a small gap in the rubbish where someone waded their way through before us and there's dust everywhere apart from on the chest of drawers."

"So someone came here to get whatever was inside the chest of drawers," John concluded. "What's inside them then that someone would risk their health entering this place for?"

"By the looks of it, this is where Garrison kept things that he didn't want to get lost in the rubbish." Sherlock gazed down at the fresh pile of trash he had added to the floor, analysing it. "By the looks of it, the only things that would be in the draws that weren't, is his passport and credit card. He may have come back here to collect them."

"So he was running from something." John said. "And it sounds like he was planning on leaving the country."

"Possibly," Sherlock agreed, he looked around the living room, his eyes caught sight of a telephone lying on top of the rubbish, and it wasn't covered in dust. "But while he was here he also answered a telephone call."

"Irene Adler?"

"Probably, and after that, he disappeared for good. And I don't think he'll be coming back."

Just then the door slammed open.

John and Sherlock tensed and turned simultaneously, they had expected to be the only people breaking and entering tonight. Maybe Garrison Smith had finally come home, but that was unlikely, perhaps the people who Garrison was running from had come to the house.

But this was even more unlikely as a group of at least eight armed policemen and DI Lestrade walked through the door. Lestrade didn't look pleased to see Sherlock, and by the look on his face, Sherlock wasn't pleased to see Lestrade. Some things never change.

"I might have known you two were here, I thought it was too good to be true not seeing you for two weeks." Lestrade said, not bothering to hide the frustration in his face and annoyance in his voice. He broke his gaze from Sherlock and looked around the apartment, his nose wrinkled in disgust.

"The feeling is mutual," Sherlock muttered, not taking his eyes off Lestrade's face. Both men completely ignored John, who felt like he had melted into the wall and vanished.

"Did you do all of this?" Lestrade demanded, looking down at the rubbish that surrounded his feet.

"No!" Sherlock said quickly, then he glanced down by his feet, where the contents of the chest of drawers now lay. "Well, not all of it."

"What are you doing here?" Lestrade asked with a sigh. When Sherlock was in the room, retiring early from the police force and living somewhere in the country suddenly seemed like a very good idea to him.

"Same reason why you're here," Sherlock replied. "Missing man who left in a hurry. You think there's trouble, so much so that your policemen are armed. And you've come here to find out what else there is to know."

"No," Lestrade replied curtly.

"What?" Sherlock didn't like getting things wrong, but what was worse was when someone like DI Lestrade pointed out his mistake. He glanced at John, who was just as surprised as he was.

"There's no missing man," Lestrade explained. "Just a dead man."


	7. The Body in the Alleyway

_Hope you're all enjoying the story so far! I've managed to edit and update a couple more chapters, so I hope you like! :)_

_Please review :)_

Chapter 7

The Body in the Alley Way

A nearby lamppost created the only light that shred through the tight walls of the alleyway, gently illuminating the horrors that were hidden there. Garrison Smith lay staring up at the sky with unseeing eyes. His mouth was slightly open, as if he was just as surprised as Sherlock to be lying there, dead.

Sherlock knelt on the cold stone and shone his torch slowly over Garrison's dead and swollen body, taking in every unpleasant detail he saw. Lestrade and John stood half a metre away, waiting for the man to come up with some sort of conclusion apart from "yep, he's definitely dead."

In the end, the silence was a little too much for Lestrade, who didn't like standing outside in the freezing cold at one o'clock in the morning as much as the next man. "Come on Sherlock we don't have all the time in the world. We've already declared the man dead at the scene, there's nothing else we can do here until morning."

"It is morning," Sherlock pointed out, speaking slowly and carefully as he always did when he was thinking. He looked up and glared at Lestrade, shining the torch in his face. "What's your conclusion then?"

"I told you." Lestrade said, blinking in the blinding torchlight. "The man was murdered, not less than twenty four hours ago. He was stabbed to death—"

"No," Sherlock interrupted before Lestrade could continue. "Never mind, you're obviously more useless at this than I thought. Perhaps you're over tired. Come back later when you might have some useful information for me."

"Well what other explanation do we have?" Lestrade snapped angrily at Sherlock, he stepped closer to the body. "Look at him, he's covered in stab wounds, at least twenty. It's obvious how he died."

"I think you'll find that the stab wounds were made after he died." Sherlock replied sharply.

"What? Don't be ridiculous Sherlock, why would anyone do that?" Lestrade demanded.

"To cover up the real reason why the person died?" John suggested. Lestrade glared at him as if John had just chosen sides with the deadly enemy. Sherlock grinned in encouragement.

"Exactly," he said proudly.

"Give me three reasons why you know that the stab wounds were made after death Sherlock and I'll give you fifty quid." Lestrade told him.

"Well firstly the body's swollen, and bodies don't do that when they've just been stabbed." Sherlock explained, turning back to the body. "There is no blood coming from the wounds, which may suggest that he has been moved, but there's hardly any on his clothes, showing that the stab wounds were made after the heart had stopped pumping blood. You would have thought that a man would try and defend himself if someone was trying to stab him? And yet there is no sign of a struggle, the wounds were made with a clean cut, showing that Garrison was lying still. Garrison would have been strong enough to fight someone off, and yet he did nothing. And another thing—"

"Yes, yes all right." Lestrade snapped, Sherlock didn't need to humiliate him more by giving more than three explanations. "I've left my wallet at home." He grumbled.

"That's all right, we'll take a check," John said, trying to resist laughing at Lestrade, as such as thing may lead to him spending the rest of the night in jail, the detective looked like he was in that sort of mood. But he was enjoying himself almost as much as Sherlock.

"The killer obviously knew what he was doing, he had planned it out. First he got Garrison somewhere quiet so no one would realise he was in trouble, after that convince Garrison that he was someone to be trusted, then kill him and mask the actual murder. Very clever." Said Sherlock.

"Oh yes, compliments to the cold blooded killer." Lestrade grumbled angrily, but then another thing came to his mind, and something glimmered on his face that was almost a smile. Perhaps he had just found a way to shut Sherlock's arrogant face up for once. "How did the man die then Holmes?"

"I don't know, that's what the killer doesn't want you to know about. If it weren't for me, you would have just taken the body away without a second glance. They covered up the real death of Garrison because it would give away who they were." Sherlock explained with confidence rather than unease, which was what Lestrade had been hoping for, so he just glared at Sherlock's back.

Silence fell for a few moments in the alleyway as the three men thought about what had just been said. Lestrade suppressed a heavy sigh; he missed the times when murders were simple. An ice-cold breeze floated down the alleyway, as if it was confirming what Sherlock said as correct, _and that worse was about to come_, John thought. He shivered, but he didn't know if it was because of the cold, or because of the thought that the cold had left behind.

"And maybe Garrison was stabbed so the killer could make sure that he was definitely dead." John put in, trying to hide the fact that he suddenly felt very uneasy.

"They really wanted him to be dead then," Sherlock agreed. It seemed that Garrison was in more trouble than anyone had suspected. "I don't think Irene's going to get her money back," he added with a slight sigh.

"Hang on, who's Irene?" Lestrade asked.

"Sherlock's girlfriend!" John said in the most childish voice he could manage at one o'clock in the morning and bursting out into laughter. "He only met her a few hours ago, but already he can't stop thinking about her."

"Really?" John had never seen Lestrade look so surprised, he grinned as well. "Well that solves the mystery Science has been pondering over for—"

"She's the woman who employed us to look for Garrison, she knew we would do a better job than you would," Sherlock snapped before Lestrade could continue. "And I have no interest in her what-so-ever!"

"He does," John assured Lestrade.

"But what makes her think that Sherlock Holmes will have more luck solving this than the police?" Lestrade demanded.

"Common sense," Sherlock replied.

"Really? Well we found the body first while you were still getting lost around his apartment." Lestrade pointed out. "And we found this," he held up a small black suitcase that had stood beside him.

"Have you been hiding evidence from me?" Sherlock demanded, insulted.

"You do that to me all the time, welcome to my world—"

"Can we for once not get into petty quarrels and concentrate on the fact there is a dead body here?" John asked before Lestrade could continue and him and Sherlock spent the next few hours arguing about who's better at their job. "We don't why he's did, we don't know when he died and we don't even know how, and I have no idea when I'm going to be able to get some sleep! So I really would like to know what's in the suitcase, because the sooner I can find out, the sooner I can go to bed."

"There's nothing that is of interest to you." Lestrade told him bitterly.

"I disagree," Sherlock said, snatching the suitcase from Lestrade and laying it on the ground, opening it carefully and then taking everything out of the suitcase, examining them, and then chucking it over his shoulder.

The suitcase contained what Sherlock had expected – a fake passport for Garrison Smith, a ticket for a plane that had left the day before, and a considerable amount of cash. Sherlock quickly calculated an estimate in his head, at least fifty thousand pounds. Lestrade was moaning at him about damaging evidence, but Sherlock ignored him, he had found something much more intriguing at the bottom of the suitcase. A small plastic bag filled with white powder.

"Irene didn't tell us anything about drugs." Sherlock said, examining the bag that contained at least thirty grams of the fine white powder.

"Drugs?" John repeated, it was also something he had not expected.

"And a knife," Sherlock added, pulling the huge, ugly looking thing out of the bottom of the suitcase. "He definitely knew he was in a lot of trouble then."

"What about the drugs?" John persisted.

"It looks like," Sherlock paused as he opened up the bag, put a little of the white powder on his finger and tasted it. "Cocaine," he confirmed, he looked a little disappointed. "Why didn't Irene mention this?"

"Women never tell you everything," Lestrade assured him.

"Perhaps she didn't know that he took drugs," John said, bending down and picking up the things that Sherlock had discarded over his shoulder. The ticket for the plane seemed to confirm the fact that Garrison would have been dead for at least twenty four hours, it was a possibility that he was on his way to the airport when he was cornered by his killers…

"I don't think he took the drugs." Sherlock said, "if he did, he probably would have spent all this money already, and I think this is a bit too much for one person to take in one go. If he was going to get on a plane he wouldn't have been able to get away with smuggling this amount of cocaine out of the country. Which just leaves—"

"Drug dealing," John finished for Sherlock.

"He probably was preparing to sell the last of his stash before getting on the plane and leaving the country. This was the place where he was going to sell it, and then he could use his profit to set up his new life abroad. But his buyer turned out to be his murderer." Said Sherlock, getting up and handing the knife and packet of cocaine over to Lestrade, as if they were no longer of interest to him.

"Well the sooner we can get this body to the morgue to confirm what Garrison _really _died of, the better." Lestrade said, glancing at his watch, which was ticking closer to two o'clock by the minute. He still thought that Garrison had been stabbed to death, and couldn't understand why Sherlock was making this so much more complicated than it needed to be. He probably enjoyed causing the trouble.

"I agree, I think there's better chance of us working out what really happened here when we have a bit more light," John said.

John didn't feel tired any more, as his mind buzzed with questions as he stared at Garrison's body. But as the seconds past he was getting colder; the night air was unforgiving. He also felt a little scared; it was just a simple murder, since he had been living with Sherlock he had seen quite a few, and he saw worse when he was at War. But for some reason someone was making it a lot more complicated, and he had a horrible feeling that this whole incident wasn't going to be over by the time the sun rose again. There was something ominous about the whole situation that John couldn't put his finger on, and for some reason he knew that this was the start of something huge, but he had no idea what, and perhaps he didn't want to know.

"And I would like to talk to this Irene Adler," Lestrade suddenly decided. "She probably knows more than us put together. Where does she live?"

"What?" John hadn't been listening; something was distracting him, he thought he had seen something out of the corner of his eye, at the entrance to the alleyway. A small figure watching him. The figure was so small it couldn't have been more than a child. He thought he saw a flash of long, white-blond hair, a little girl? John turned his head to get a closer look, but the figure had gone.

"I said, where does Irene Adler live?" Lestrade repeated, slightly annoyed. No one seemed to listen to him these days.

"We don't even know," John admitted, tearing his eyes off the spot where he thought he had seen the figure. "We met her at some party this evening. She hardly told us anything about herself. She just said she wanted to find Garrison Smith, that he was in trouble, and that he owed her some money. We know nothing about her, but she knew who we were."

"Well once you've met Sherlock Holmes it's rather hard to forget him," Lestrade mumbled as he watched Sherlock carefully.

Sherlock had begun to wander around the alleyway, deep in thought. Unlike John, he had no desire to go back home yet; he at least had to answer a few more questions first. He was looking for any signs of the killer being there, but the killer had been very careful not to leave a trace of themselves, apart from one thing.

Sherlock stopped dead near the end of the alleyway, next to Garrison's body, and shone his torch over the crumbling wall.

"John, what does Epica mean?"

"Hmm?" John went over to where Sherlock was standing to see what he was talking about and why he was staring at the wall.

"Oh," was all John could think to say.

Written on the wall, in what hoped John was red paint and not blood, which was so fresh it had hardly dried, were the words:

EPICA'S JOURNEY 1

John was right; this was a lot more than a simple murder. Simple murders and murderers don't leave messages on the walls for Sherlock Holmes to find, and there was only one man who was part of an organisation that did such a thing.


	8. Venom

Chapter 8

Venom

The mobile said it was an unknown number, but Sherlock had a strong feeling he knew who it was going to be. He stared at the phone in his hand as it buzzed again and again; he couldn't understand why the thought of answering the phone and talking to the person was making his heart thumb loudly. He could see out of the corner of his eye John had put down his newspaper and was now staring at him, waiting for him to respond to the ringing phone. Sherlock turned away from John before he answered the phone.

"Sherlock," said the voice of Irene Adler, she sounded pleased to speak to him again. "I hope I'm not calling at a bad time."

"No it's fine," Sherlock assured her; he could still feel John's eyes burning into his back. "Is there something you need to tell me?" He asked, wondering why there was a slight tint of dread in his voice.

"I was just wondering if you've had any luck with finding Garrison." Irene asked with light curiosity.

"It's only been twenty-four hours." Sherlock pointed out.

"Yes, and you must have made some progress since then. I'm curious to know if you've found anything about his whereabouts yet." Irene said, sounding as confident as she had the night before.

"Well, sort of," Sherlock said slowly.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm looking at him," Sherlock said, staring at the body that was lying in front of him on the table. John hadn't been very happy when Sherlock had brought the body home from the morgue and put him on the kitchen table, as apparently John ate off it.

"You found him then!" Irene said with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm. She knew it wouldn't take the Consulting Detective long.

"There's a catch though,"

"What's that?" The enthusiasm died down quickly.

"He's dead."

"Oh," Sherlock imagined that Irene's perfect face was probably forming into a frown at this moment. "How did that happen then?" She demanded.

"They thought he was stabbed to death, but they got an interesting conclusion at the autopsy."

"What was that?"

"A large amount of Latrotoxin was found inside him,"

"I'm sorry, latro-what?"

"It's a type of poison usually found in the venom of spiders." Sherlock explained.

"Spiders?" Irene repeated, she sounded just as confused and curious as Sherlock felt when he received the news.

"Yes, Black Widows to be more precise."

"What the hell is a man doing in London with Black Widow poison running through his veins?" She wondered aloud.

"That's what I'm trying to work out, we don't know how the poison even got there." Sherlock told her.

There was a pause. "Well, I'll speak to you when you've made some more progress," Irene said slowly, obviously deep in thought.

"One more thing," Sherlock said quickly before Irene could hang up.

"What's that?" She asked with slight caution.

"Do you know what 'Epica' means?" Sherlock asked, the image of the writing on the wall as clear in his head as it was when he first saw it. It played on his mind almost as much as Garrison's mysterious autopsy.

"Epica?" There was a pause. "Never heard of it, sorry. Is it important?"

"I don't know yet," Sherlock mumbled.

"Oh, well I'll leave you to your work," Irene said pleasantly.

Sherlock hardly had time to say goodbye before Miss Adler hung up. He wanted to ask her some more questions, but for now they could wait. He turned his attention back to Garrison Smith. He took a magnifying glass from his pocket and went over to examine the body. So far, the only damage that had been found on Garrison's skin were the stab wounds, no evidence of how the poison entered the body.

"Perhaps he took the poison orally." John suggested, as if he knew what Sherlock was thinking.

"No, the venom wasn't found in the stomach, just in the blood stream, and if he had that suggests that he took it willingly. I don't think he wanted to die." Sherlock replied, rolling up Garrison's sleeves so he could take a closer look at his arms. "I think the poison was injected straight into the blood stream."

"I'll leave you to look for the evidence, that body's starting to smell." John told Sherlock, breaking his gaze from him now that the phone conversation was over. "So how's Irene?" He asked.

"She's fine," Sherlock said after a short pause.

"I bet she's missed you," John teased.

"I wouldn't know," Sherlock replied in a flat tone, not looking up and concentrating of what he was doing.

"Have you missed her?"

"Yes!" Sherlock shouted.

"Oh come on Sherlock, it's no fun if you admit it," John said, gazing curiously at his flat mate.

"No," Sherlock snapped; "I've found where Garrison was poisoned."

"Really?" John got up and joined Sherlock at the table.

Sure enough, on Garrison's arm just below the elbow, were two tiny pinpricks, about the same size as a freckle. It was hard to see what was so important about them, until you realised that the whole area around the supposed bite was red and swollen. John didn't know much about poisonous animals, but it didn't take an expert to know that this was a spider bite.

"You were right then," he said, looking up again at Sherlock. "He wasn't stabbed to death, he was killed by an insect."

"Spiders are anthropoids, not insects," Sherlock corrected, he had stopped looking at the body and had begun pacing up and down the kitchen, thinking hard.

"Doesn't explain why someone would want to cover it up with stabbing." John pointed out, ignoring what Sherlock had said.

"Well there aren't very many Black Widow spiders in the country are there? If it came from a private zoo, or was some sort of pet, it would be quite easy to track where it came from and the owner. No one would want anyone to know it was his or her spider that killed someone. It also shows that this was no accident, someone purposefully set a spider on him, and then felt the need to cover it up."

"There's something else I found Sherlock," John said slowly.

"What's that?"

"The same place that Garrison was found dead, and on the same day, a child went missing." John held up the newspaper he had been reading, showing Sherlock an article title 'Child Missing' in bold letters. It was about the third time he had read the particular article that morning, it had been on his mind all the time and was bothering more than the dead body on his kitchen table, but he wasn't sure why. He felt that he needed to tell Sherlock, but he didn't seem to be so concerned.

"Children run away all the time and they're back within twenty-four hours." He said dismissively.

"It's been a lot longer than just one day," John pointed out, slightly annoyed that Sherlock didn't seem to care, he had to admit he had thought the same thing, but he knew that something was very wrong. "And they say she's only eight years old."

"Her parents should have taken more care of her," Sherlock said casually, not realising how harsh his words were.

"Aren't you concerned at all about this girl?"

"She has nothing to do with me."

John felt a sudden wave of anger, if this was his child that went missing, he really wouldn't like the way Sherlock was treating it as if the girl was nothing more than a dog that had run out of an open gate. Sherlock was concerned about a grown man who was already beyond their help, so what about this little girl, lost and terrified in the dark? The thought made John's blood boil.

"Neither has Garrison Smith," he pointed out. "And yet we still stayed up until two o'clock in the morning because of him. This girl might have seen something, have you not thought of that?" He remembered the figure he saw by the alleyway, it was about the size of a child, was it possible it was the missing girl? If so, she would be important to Sherlock too.

"I doubt she could tell us anything we didn't know already, and if she's only a child we won't know if she's telling us the truth. They'll find her eventually, they just need to lay down some traps or something—"

"Holmes!"

"Perhaps a net," Sherlock continued.

"You can't say that, she's not a rat! Do you care about no one but yourself?" John snapped. Sherlock didn't reply, but that didn't matter, he already knew the answer. "Let me answer that for you," John continued after a short stretch of silence. "No you don't. If I disappeared one day you wouldn't bat an eyelid, you wouldn't even realise I had gone."

"You can look after yourself,"

"That's not the point—" John began.

"And I'm sure the girl can look after herself as well and if she can't she shouldn't have run away. We have too much work to do to worry about her, and we don't even know anything about the girl," Sherlock pointed out.

"We don't know anything about Garrison Smith either, and yet he's still lying dead in my house—"

"Our house," Sherlock interrupted, his voice as calm as it ever was, as if he had no idea that they were even having an argument.

"Our house, and yet you still sit around and do nothing all day!" John yelled, finally losing his temper. He was fed up of Sherlock acting so uncaring and arrogant and lazy.

"I'm sorry, is this a domestic argument or are you still worried about the child?" Sherlock asked curiously.

"Of course I'm still worried about the girl! She had no reason to run away, and yet she's disappeared. She can't look after herself, you've seen what monsters lie out there in the dark, she may have become a victim already!"

"It's not my problem," was all Sherlock said.

There was a short silence.

"Fine," John said, letting out a heavy sigh. "Fine," without looking twice at Sherlock, he went over and grabbed his coat from the coat stand. He threw the door open.

"Where are you going John?" Sherlock demanded.

"I'm going to stay with Molly for a few days, if I stay any longer in this house I might explode. And I don't care what you think, I'm going to try and find this girl before it's too late." And with that, John left, slamming the door behind him.


	9. Help Me

Chapter 9

Help Me

The dark clouds over London were making the day almost as dark as the night. Soon the clouds would break and cover London with their tears. Rumbling anger from thunder and furious flashes of lightning would throw themselves down upon the world. Most people would shut themselves inside their houses, keeping themselves nice and warm and try to forget about the terrible raging storm outside as they waited for it to pass.

The thing about a thunderstorm is that it's a waiting game, waiting for the calm to signal the storm, waiting for the rain to fall, waiting for the lightning to strike. Those who don't expect it will be the ones who will suffer from the storm. And who knows when the storm will pass?

John Watson's feet thudded loudly on the pavement, he glared down at them as if they had personally insulted him. The anger was clear in his eyes, he could feel it burning inside him.

He had never known a man to be as selfish as Sherlock Holmes, to be so uncaring. There weren't very many people who wouldn't be concerned about the welfare of a lost child, but Sherlock seemed to be one of them. He acted so infuriatingly calm all the time; the only thing that seemed to cheer him up was a body lying in the gutter. The only other person who would act like that would be the one that was responsible for putting the body in the gutter in the first place.

Storming off down the street, John wasn't sure where he was going or how long he had been walking, all he knew was that he needed a walk, it would eventually it would burn off his anger, and then he would be able to calm down.

John didn't know what time it was, but it was getting dark very quickly. He gazed up at the grimacing sky, and shivered. He suddenly decided the sooner he got somewhere where it was warm and, most importantly, indoors, the better.

It was then that John realised he actually had no idea where he was. He wasn't such an expert with London as Sherlock was. He had taken too many sharp turnings down narrow passageways and empty streets to be able to retrace his steps. He wasn't walking by the main road as he had been doing a few moments before and he was no longer walking along a busy street. This street was empty, and, so it seemed, were the houses that lined it.

Cursing, John kicked an empty can that lay by his foot, and watched it clatter unsteadily down the road. Knowing full well that it wasn't Sherlock's fault for getting him lost, he blamed Sherlock anyway. He should act like a better person more often and perhaps he might just be bearable to live with. John gazed around at the street he was in, it reminded him of the area where they had found Garrison's body, perhaps he was near the area where the murder had actually occurred. John considered turning back to try and find the main road again, or perhaps a map. At least find somewhere where there were people.

"Can you help me?"

The light, high-pitched voice rang out through the silence and bounced off the walls of the houses on either side, stopping John in his tracks. For a few moments he thought that he had been imagining it, that it was in his mind. Then he heard it again:

"Please, can you help me?"

John turned around to find himself face-to-face with a small girl, probably no more than eight years old. She had white-blond hair; large eyes and it looked like she had been crying.

"Can you help me?" The girl said again.

There was a short pause, in which John stared down at the little girl. He had not expected to run into the very person he had just been arguing about with his friend. Perhaps he should have been more suspicious, but right now his concern was with the child.

"Are you the one who's missing?" John asked, he wasn't sure if this was the right thing to ask, but he couldn't really think of anything else to say. He knelt down so he was at the same level as the child.

The little girl nodded, looking down at the ground, afraid of him, but her eyes looked desperate.

"What's your name?" John said gently.

"Lucy," the little girl replied.

"Where do you live Lucy?" John asked, doubting that the little girl knew, probably the best thing to do was to take her to the police station, wherever the nearest police station was.

But Lucy shook her head; tears began to build up in her eyes. "I can't go home yet," she told him in a whisper.

"Why not?"

"I want my teddy first. He says I can't go home until I get my teddy."

"He?" This wasn't making any sense, surely the girl would want to do nothing but go home?

"Please can you help me find my teddy?" Lucy asked again, it seemed to be the only thing she could say, or think to say in the situation. John wasn't sure what to say either.

"All right, I'll help you get your toy, and then I'll take you back home," he said, straightening up, there didn't seem to be much else he could do. He didn't want to cause any more distress for the child by forcing her to go home, and then he'd be the one in trouble. "Where is it?"

Lucy gave a small smile, relieved that there was someone that could finally help her. She took John by the hand and led him off into the dark.

It looked like an old warehouse or factory of some sort. It was getting so dark now it was hard to tell, all that John knew for certain is that no one had stepped in there for a very long time. The letters spelling out the name of the building had fallen or eroded away many years ago and the place was deserted. Lucy lead him into a huge room with no lights, broken windows and spider webs filling the darkest corners they could find. There was nothing in the room apart from two doors at either end and a smell of damp in the air.

They had been walking for about ten minutes, further and further down darker passageways. John had kept on trying to ask the little girl how she had managed to find such a place, how she had become so lost. But she didn't reply, perhaps she didn't even know herself.

"How did you find this place Lucy?" John asked her again, a little more firmly. But Lucy didn't reply, she was becoming more urgent, pulling John along.

"Look," she said, pointing upwards towards the ceiling.

Hanging from the ceiling by a thin piece of string, illuminated by a thin shred of light from one of the broken windows, was a teddy bear, the piece of string tied to its foot as it swung in an invisible breeze. It was too far up for Lucy to reach. John stretched up and pulled the bear off the string.

"How did it get up there?" John asked, trying not to sound worried and suspicious as he passed the bear to Lucy. This was getting more and more peculiar.

"He put it up there, he said I couldn't go home until I got you to come and get it." Lucy explained, taking the bear and hugging it close to her.

"Who's he?" John demanded. "Did someone want to bring me here?"

Lucy said nothing; she just hugged the bear close to her chest and stared at John with her large eyes. She looked as if she wanted to tell him something, but didn't know what it was, or perhaps she was too scared.

This was getting worse by the second.

"Lucy you have to tell me who put your bear here, who wanted to take me to this place?" John knelt down beside Lucy and stared deep into her eyes as if he was trying to read her mind. "You have to tell me."

"He did." Lucy pointed behind John into the darkness.

Before John stood up and turned around, he knew who it was. The sounds of the footsteps walking towards him sounded normal, and yet were unmistakable. John had heard them before.

The footsteps of a dead man.

"Hello Johnny boy," said the highly amused voice of Jim Moriaty. "Long time no see, have you missed me?"

Outside, it began to rain.

* * *

_The weather was meant to be a build up suspense up to this moment, I'm just not very good at doing it…and now I've ruined it completely by having to explain it! But I didn't want anyone to start thinking "why is she so obsessed with clouds?" haha. And that was also my attempt at a cliff hanger!_

_I hope you enjoyed the chapter anyway! Please review! :)_


	10. The Great Game Two

_Sorry about the delay for the update, it's been a hectic week! I was hoping to put up more than one chapter today, but I've got a lot of work to do so I don't really have the time, I hope you enjoy it anyway!_

_Warning: this chapter contains swearing, so beware those who may have sensitive ears/eyes!_

_Reviews are awesome as always, and thanks to those who have reviewed so far! :D_

* * *

Chapter 10

The Great Game Two

John couldn't do much apart from stare at Moriaty as he stood casually in the doorway, smiling as if the whole thing was some sort of joke.

"You," was all John could think to say into the shocked silence, the one word dripping with loathing.

"Ah, yes, me." Moriaty grinned, as if John had just complimented him.

"You're meant to be dead."

Moriaty swayed on the balls of his feet, still grinning, as if he was enjoying himself very much. He was wearing almost exactly the same clothes he had worn when they had met; black polished shoes, smart suit and tie. "So are you actually," he pointed out, "but you're not, and that might work out better for the both of us after all."

Lucy was the only thing that stood in between the two men, and, to John's surprise, she turned and went right up to Moriaty without a sign of fear. She was still clutching her teddy bear.

"Can I go home now?" She asked in a small voice.

"Yes, I've have no use for you now. It's not my principle to shoot dumb animals, not small ones anyway." Moriaty replied, staring down at her.

Lucy took one look back at John, a mixture of fear and perhaps sympathy in her large eyes. She squeezed silently past Moriaty and left the room.

There was a short silence; John could hear the rain hammering at the windows, as if it wanted to smash them apart. The occasional drip of rain from a hole in the ceiling seemed to echo around the room. The first rumble of thunder echoed through the sky, it sounded as if it was miles away, but no doubt it would come closer. John so desperately wanted to run away, cowardly as that would be, but the further away from Moriarty, the better. However his legs were glued to the floor, and he couldn't do anything else other than the man standing in front of him, watching the little girl as she disappeared from sight.

"Isn't she cute," Moriaty smiled when he was sure that Lucy had gone.

"You bastard," John spat, rage burning like fire through his veins. Who in their right man would kidnap a child? "You utter bastard, how long have you been keeping her here?"

"All right no need to swear at me," Moriaty rolled his eyes. "Only a few days. I don't know why you're glaring at me, it's your fault, if you had come sooner I wouldn't have had to keep her so long."

"She's nothing but skin and bones, didn't you feed her?" John demanded.

"I'm not running a fancy hotel John, she's still alive isn't she? Although she was so annoying," Moriaty said, elongating his 'so' as he always seemed to do. "Every night she cried and was asking for her mummy or daddy or little teddy bear. I really hate children, although that probably isn't a surprise to you. Anyway it turned out she did become of use in the end. I knew you would be one of those people who would be worried about a little girl, so would try and find her at some point. Would you please stop glaring at me John it's very irritating!"

"I'm guessing you're responsible for the death of Garrison Smith as well?" John responded in a flat tone, he didn't stop glaring at Moriaty.

Moriarty giggled and clapped. "Well done John, I kill people! You're getting quite good at this now aren't you! Quite probably, I'm not quite sure I recognise the name. How did he die?"

"Spider bite."

"Oh yes that was probably one of mine," said Moriaty, he stepped further into the room, John didn't move, he kept his eyes focused on Moriaty's face, despite the raw hatred he felt from looking at it. The men were now only a few feet apart, staring at each other. John wished he had a gun.

"You don't even remember the names of the people you kill?" John responded. He couldn't understand how a spider bite connected Moriaty, but there wasn't much he could understand about this man.

"There are a lot of them John, it's hard to remember _all _of them. I've got better things to do." Moriaty replied, "But I can promise you one thing – more bodies will be turning up soon."

"Are you going to tell me why you killed him?"

Moriarty shrugged, his posture still frustratingly casual. "I'll explain it all a bit later, we've got plenty of time. The main reason was because he was annoying; he was getting in my way. Do you see what happens to people who get in my way? I don't think he died a very pleasant death, but that just makes it more enjoyable for me."

"You're a sick man." John finally took his gaze off Moriaty; his eyes started darting around the room, looking for ways to escape. He couldn't stay here much longer. There were just two doors and several windows, but they were far too small for a grown man to fit through.

"I'll take that as a compliment, though I'm guessing it's not." Moriaty's smile faltered a little as he spoke. "And you can stop trying to find a way to escape, you won't be leaving here for a while."

Sadly, John knew he was right. He gave up looking for a way out; he went back to glaring at Moriaty. "What do you want from me?" He demanded.

"Oh…it's that word, what is it? I always forget it, it tastes very sweet, but I can never decide if it's served best hot or cold….Revenge, that's the one." Moriaty smacked his lips at the word and grinned. "It's so delicious. Vengeance is mine, as they say. But I thought that would be obvious to you, or perhaps you're dumber than I thought."

"I'm not dumb." John snapped, "I know this is about Sherlock Holmes, I just don't know why. I thought you'd had your fun with him."

Moriarty nodded, he almost looked sad, but there was a glint in his eye that told John he was enjoying this little game. "Yes, but you see I do that really irritating thing where I change my mind all the time."

"Yes, I've noticed."

"I couldn't let you get out of that swimming pool alive, but you did anyway." There was a strange expression on Moriaty's face that seemed close to anger. "I should have shot you when I had the chance, but something told me that I should wait, and it seems that it will work out better this way after all."

"If you're trying to use me to get to Sherlock, you've got the wrong person." John told Moriaty bitterly.

"Aww, have you two had a bit of a fall out?" Moriaty asked in a sympathetic voice.

"You never answered me when I said you should be dead," John changed the subject quickly. He didn't think that Moriaty was the best person to explain friendship issues with.

"I know but I'm alive! How fun," Moriaty gave a horrible laugh and grinned, clapping his hands once more, but then he became more serious. "Though you knew I was alive, you knew all along."

"How did you survive?"

"Same way you did probably, pure bloody luck. And the fact that I knew Sherlock was going to do something stupid like that, so I made sure the bomb wasn't as explosive as you thought. Also a bullet proof jacket under a suit helps. That's the thing you see, I'm always one step ahead of you, always have been, always will be. It's what makes the game work, and this is the next game. Great Game Two shall I call it? That sounds like fun. Perhaps not as fun as the last one, but if someone doesn't stop me soon, then more people will die, a lot more than before." Moriaty laughed, "they'll fall like flies."

"What have you done?" John tried to hide the fear in his voice.

"Patience my dear John, I'm not just going to tell you everything because you order me to. As I said, we've got plenty of time, you're not going anywhere. If I tell you all my plans in five minutes that'll just ruin my fun."

"I don't have to stay here, and I don't have to listen to your shit," John spat, his heart was still pumping red-hot anger through his veins. "What makes you think I'm going to stay? I can walk out of here right now if I wanted to."

"You could," Moriaty nodded in agreement. "But I know you won't, curiosity for one thing, it's been the only thing that's been keeping you here since the start. Also it's just a very bad idea, because I have one of these." With a flash, Moriaty had whipped out a gun and was pointing it at John's head. John's blood froze in horror and terror in a matter of seconds.

"I thought you didn't like getting your hands dirty," he pointed out.

"Hmm, changed my mind about that as well. You see, this game's going to be a bit different to the last, and I'm willing to get a little blood on my hands if that's what I have to do."

John realised he had stopped breathing, he tried to keep himself calm, to think clearly. He didn't want to die.

"You're not going to kill me," he said as calmly as possible.

"That depends," Moriaty said darkly, his eyes narrowed. "Does Sherlock know I'm alive?"

"No," John admitted.

"You didn't tell him?" For a moment John thought that he had given the wrong answer, that he was going to die, but then he realised that Moriaty seemed please with him.

"You wanted me to tell him?" He asked.

"No of course not! That would just ruin everything if you had." Moriaty explained. "I'm just curious about why you didn't tell him."

"I didn't want to sound like I had gone mad," John mumbled to himself, he felt like a fool, he should have said something. But perhaps he was going mad; maybe this was all a bad dream. He hoped he would wake up soon.

"Oh, so you lied to him. He's going to be so angry when he finds out I've been alive and kicking all along!" Moriaty gave a laugh that was more like a cackle, but he still held the gun firmly in his hand.

"I don't get what's so funny," John said between gritted teeth. Though he doubted anyone would find anything funny when they had a gun pointing at them.

"Well I find it funny, you wouldn't. Because you always thought that you trusted him, but it turned out you doubted him. Do you know what's the worst part for you? Sherlock would have listened!"

Moriaty yelled these last four words, and they made a shiver run down John's spine. He looked away from the gun, he couldn't face the truth of what had happened, what was happening now, any more. It was then that John spotted the security camera.

The camera was sitting in the top corner of the old factory, and it was focused on where John and Moriaty were standing. John wondered who might be watching them and why. For a few moments he thought that perhaps someone might be watching the camera and realise that something was very wrong, and get some help. But then he realised it was probably Moriaty's camera, so he would get no help from that.

It was then that Moriaty noticed what John was looking at, and fired a single shot.


	11. Missing

Chapter 11

Missing

Sherlock could tell, just by the way the figure swept into the room, that this wasn't John. Instead, as he whipped his head round and glared at the door as it swung itself shut, he found himself looking up at the figure of Irene Adler. She seemed amused by the surprised look on his face, as if there was no reason for it, and she acted as if she had been in his home a hundred times before.

"Miss Hudson is a lovely woman," she said naturally. "And she makes a wonderful cup of tea, but I think you should avoid her for a little bit, as apparently you owe her some rent."

"Err," was about all Sherlock could think to say.

"Terrible storm the other night wasn't it? Seemed to last for hours." Irene continued.

Sherlock had to admire the way Irene's presence seemed to stand out so much, it would do in any situation, not just because a beautiful young woman had swept into his comparatively bland and dull home. She wasn't wearing such brightly coloured lipstick as before, and her dark hair was now flowing down over her shoulders. Today Irene seemed to be making up for the lack of bright red lipstick, as she was wearing a bright red tight fitting T-shirt instead with a short black skirt. They were simple looking clothes, but they suited her well, and they were probably quite expensive. Around Irene's neck was a large pendant that were the colours of emerald and gold, and were probably made of the gemstones too. The sudden sight of Irene seemed to create great distraction and confusion for Sherlock.

"What—" Sherlock was slowly managing to form words in his mind so he could speak again. "How do you know where I live?"

"I'm psychic," Irene stuck out her tongue and winked at him, Sherlock turned bright red, making her laugh. "I found your home in the address book Sherlock, like I do with everyone else."

"Is there any way you can make sure your address isn't in this book?" Sherlock asked.

"How am I meant to know? I doubt it," Irene laughed again; Sherlock was acting like he had never heard of an address book before. But then her forehead crinkled and she looked annoyed. "Why are you looking at me like that?" She questioned.

"Looking at you like what?"

"Like you're not pleased to see me," Irene said a little sadly, but there was a mocking tone in her voice.

"No, I am," Sherlock said quickly, and then wondered why he had said it. He was trying very hard not to stare at Irene and think of something suitable to say. "What are you doing here?" Was all he could manage.

"It's been two days since we last talked Sherlock, and I was wondering how you were getting on with the murder case, I happened to be in the area so I decided to pop in," Irene replied perfectly innocently, but Sherlock had a feeling she was lying to him again. She was walking around as if she owned the place, going through the living room and into the kitchen, inspecting the fridge. "For such a clever man I didn't think you would seem so surprised to see me."

"I think you're full of surprises," Sherlock muttered to himself.

"Sorry what did you say?" Irene said in her same innocent tone, looking up at him.

"Nothing that should concern you," _I think _Sherlock thought to himself, he wasn't sure. He didn't like it when he wasn't sure about something.

"You're not used to having lady visitors are you?" Irene said, closing the fridge door and putting her hands on her hips as she took in the full scale of the mess that seemed to be gathered around Sherlock.

"What do you mean by that?" Sherlock demanded.

"Well you haven't been very polite, you don't seem pleased to see me, and you haven't offered me anything to drink." Irene pointed out.

"Err, all right then," Sherlock was feeling uncomfortable again. "What would you like a drink?" He asked a little stiffly.

"At the moment what I really want is a nice bottle of red," Irene said almost dreamily, as she wandered back into the living room, looking at him as if she was trying to tell him something.

"A what?"

"Wine Sherlock," Irene rolled her eyes. "I was warned that you had no social skills, but I didn't think you were this bad."

"We don't have any wine," Sherlock said bluntly. He also seemed to miss the fact that Irene saw red wine as a romantic drink.

"Fine, I'll just have beer," she replied.

"We don't have any beer either," Sherlock said slowly, looking at Irene as if he was surprised that someone like her would drink beer.

"To be honest, I wasn't expecting a yes after I saw the state of your fridge. I won't bother asking when was the last time you ate a decent meal." Irene admitted, dumping pieces of clothes and newspapers that sat on a sofa on the floor before sitting down. "Never mind, forget the drink, let's get down to business."

"What business?" Sherlock asked.

Irene let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm talking about Garrison Smith Sherlock, that's the reason I'm here," she explained. "I want to know more about what happened, all you told me was that Garrison was dead and there was an autopsy result that didn't make sense."

"The autopsy was correct," Sherlock told her. "He didn't die from stab wounds, he was bitten by a spider, the stabs were to try and cover up the real cause of death."

"Yes, but when was the last time you heard someone in the UK dying from a poisonous spider bite? More specifically, when was the last time you heard of someone dying from a spider bite and then the murderer putting in the extra and rather violent effort of trying to cover it up?" Irene pointed out.

"I think you have," Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow with interest.

"What? Don't be ridiculous Sherlock, if I had I wouldn't have come all the way here to ask you about it."

"Yes, but your voice went up a semi-tone, showing that you seem distressed about this particular subject. You say you have never heard of such a thing before, but perhaps you're worried that this may happen to other people now." Sherlock told her.

Irene stared at him for a few moments; Sherlock was quite used to people doing this to him whenever he made a seemingly obvious point, but he felt himself struggling to keep his eyes fixed on Irene's as if he was nervous about doing so. In the end, Irene seemed to regain herself.

"Spider bites are things I worry about when I go to Australia Sherlock, not London. Now you still haven't answered my question, I'm curious to know what you found at the place you found the unfortunate Mr Smith." Irene settled herself comfortably in the chair, as if she was trying to make a point that she wasn't going to be leaving any time soon. Now it was her turn to raise an eyebrow as she waited for Sherlock to respond.

"Nothing but a suitcase and writing on the wall." Sherlock said simply, as if he didn't really want to get into the conversation.

"What was in the suitcase?" Irene demanded, she didn't seem to be bothered about the writing on the wall.

"Fifty thousand pounds, and about the same amount again in cocaine," Sherlock informed her, waiting to see what response Irene would give to this.

Suddenly, Irene punched the arm of her chair in annoyance, her dark eyes narrowing. "Damn it, that was my money!" She hissed. Sherlock was shocked; he had expected surprise or interest, not anger. He immediately became suspicious.

"Rent for a small flat or apartment isn't usually over fifty thousand pounds. I doubt it was rent money that you lent to Garrison Smith," he told her.

"No it wasn't," Irene admitted, her temper calmed down quickly, and she stared, almost embarrassed, at the floor.

"You knew he was a drug dealer."

"What are you going to do, arrest him?" Irene demanded, her mouth twitched, Sherlock thought she was trying not to laugh. But it seemed that Irene knew this was no time to make jokes over a dead man, she hadn't told him the truth, and he wasn't impressed. He knew she was lying to him when she told him about the money, and this simply confirmed it.

"No of course I'm not going to arrest him," Sherlock snapped back. "Are you going to tell me the truth now? Or shall I have you arrested for diverting the course of justice?"

Irene threw her hands up in the air in frustration, as if this was just a pointless conversation and she was wasting her time. "All right, all right," she did seem rather hurried to keep Sherlock from calling the police though. "I'll confess, yes I knew he was a drug dealer, but that wasn't his only job. He could never keep jobs long because he was a liar and a scoundrel and a cheat, he was always doing something wrong and running from the law. The job he had before he died was something to do with a factory, I don't really know, I didn't really care. Suddenly he came up to me and wanted all this money, I knew he was desperate for it because he promised that if I gave him sixty thousand pounds, he would pay me back eighty. If I agreed, I'll be making an extra twenty thousand pounds, how could I say no to that?"

"But you didn't even ask why he wanted the money?" Sherlock asked, he didn't sound or look impressed, he tapped his fingers on the chair as he listened and thought.

"Of course I did!" Irene snapped. "I'm not an idiot, I wanted to know what he wanted the money for. But he wouldn't tell me, he just said he was in trouble with his work, the factory work, and he needed the money to get out of it. I couldn't get anything else out of him, and he kept on begging for the money, saying he had to get away, but he'd send me the cash within a week. So I gave him the money. And I never heard from him, a week came, a week went. In the end I rang him up at his house, the only number I had. I demanded the money, I was growing impatient so I demanded more money, money I knew he could get, he was a drug dealer for goodness sake! After that phone call I somehow knew I would never get the money, he sounded urgent and afraid, I knew he was going to try and run away. However I also knew that there was someone who would help me find Garrison Smith." Irene smiled at Sherlock as she said this. "A man who would find him before he spent all my money, before he disappeared, before whatever he was in trouble with caught up with him."

"It seemed I was a little too late to help," Sherlock said.

Irene shrugged, "I reckon he died the night I called him, there wasn't much you could do about that."

There was a long pause.

"Interesting," Sherlock said slowly into the silence.

"What is?" Irene demanded. Was he confused about something? She thought she had explained everything quite clearly.

"By the way you explained it, you make it sound like it had nothing to do with the fact that he was a drug dealer, his murderer wasn't just an angry customer or fellow drug dealer. You make it sound like it was someone from this factory."

"Garrison was always in trouble with drug dealing, or someone was always in trouble with him, he never seemed to care, he dealt with it. This time he didn't mention anything to do with his drugs, he said it was something to do with the factory, and he was scared."

"Is it unusual for him to be scared then?"

"Unusual? I've never known him to be scared at all, I didn't think it was possible," Irene told Sherlock. "People are usually scared of Garrison, I never thought it would be the other way round. He must have made someone angry, someone very angry, and he wanted to run from them. He never runs from a fight."

"Which leads us straight back to the writing on the wall," Sherlock decided suddenly, although he was talking to himself rather than Irene.

"Writing on the wall?" She repeated, confused.

"Yes, a message on the wall right beside Garrison's dead body. They wrote it in red paint. I think the killer put it there, and wanted to make it look like blood to scare people, perhaps to warn people."

"What did he write?" Irene asked.

"Epica's Journey one," Sherlock told her.

"Who's journey?"

"Exactly," Sherlock sounded almost happy about the fact Irene that was just as confused as he was.

"Don't be so certain of yourself Sherlock, it might not be a message from the murderer. It could just be some random graffiti that someone put there," Irene pointed out. "People put graffiti everywhere for all sorts of different reasons, like if there's a particular band they like or gang they're with."

"No," Sherlock said, shaking his head dismissively before Irene had even finished. "Who would go down an alleyway to do some graffiti when there were plenty other surfaces to use without going down a dark, dingy passageway? And the paint was fresh, who would go down an alleyway and decide that writing something on the wall was more important than the fact that there's a dead body lying at your fe— what did you say?" Sherlock demanded, stopping mid sentence.

"I didn't say anything," Irene said quickly, looking at Sherlock as if he had perhaps gone a little mad.

"Yes you did, about graffiti," Sherlock said almost desperately, waving a hand as if to encourage Irene to speak.

"Err, I simply said people put graffiti on walls for all sorts of reasons, like a band they like. Why?"

"I've tried to look up the word Epica, but I've found nothing. I never considered it could have anything to do with music though," Sherlock explained, he stood up suddenly and began to pace up and down.

"Sorry, you've lost me a little, are you saying someone tried to send a message to you through writing a name of a song?" Irene checked. She had heard of murders before, but never murderers leaving such an odd message behind.

"It's possible, look Epica up on the Internet," Sherlock ordered, still pacing up and down.

Irene didn't budge. She wasn't good at taking orders; she just sat there and raised a dark eyebrow. "Why can't you do it?" She demanded.

"Because I'm trying to think," Sherlock snapped at her, "this would be a lot easier if I hadn't run out of nicotine patches," he muttered to himself.

"OK," said Irene slowly, deciding not to ask what he was on about as she moved over to Sherlock's laptop. She typed the words _Epica _into the search box of the first Website she could think of.

There was a short silence apart from the footsteps of a constantly pacing Sherlock, Irene wondered if she could try starting a conversation with him, but he seemed far too distracted. Something popped up on the screen however that distracted her from these thoughts.

"I've found it." She said suddenly.

Within moments Sherlock was at her side. "What is it?" He demanded, leaning over her shoulder so he could see the computer screen clearly.

"You were right, Epica is a band."

"Why do you sound so surprised that I was right?"

"They're a metal band from the Netherlands," Irene continued, ignoring Sherlock's question. "They've made quite a few albums and compilations," she paused, not sure if she believed what she had just read. Three words that made no sense suddenly seemed to be fitting together like a puzzle before her eyes. "The first one was called An Epic Journey."

"Epica's Journey," Sherlock said slowly, rolling it over in his mind. He suddenly stood up straight and began to pace urgently again. "Epica's Journey One, number one. Tell me what was their first song on that CD."

There was a short pause as Irene found what Sherlock wanted, then a longer pause as she stared at the screen.

"It says—" she began,

Sherlock's mobile phone rang.

"Expecting a call?" Irene asked innocently but slightly irritated at the same time, was this really a good time to be receiving a phone call? Sherlock pulled his phone out of his pocket and stared at it, slight surprise in his face.

"No," he replied slowly as he sat down to answer the phone. "Hello?" He said cautiously into it.

"_Sherlock?" _A worried sounding voice said at the other end of the phone.

"Molly?" Sherlock could feel Irene's curious eyes burning into him, he felt just as curious as her.

"_I'm sorry I had to call you, I hope I'm not disturbing anything._" Molly said quickly, but she still sounded worried about something.

"No, no it's fine," but Sherlock's tone didn't make it sound like it was fine. "Is there anything the matter?"

"_I was wondering if you had seen John recently?_" Molly asked.

"No," Sherlock said cautiously. "I haven't seen him for a few days. I thought he was with you."

"_I haven't seen him in days either, I haven't heard anything from him. Do you knew where he is? Sherlock?_" Molly felt even more concerned when Sherlock Holmes didn't reply to her question. She could still hear his heavy breathing on the other end of the phone, but other than that, silence.

Something was charging through Sherlock's mind like a stampede, knocking everything else that may or may not have been of great importance aside. Reality and fear hit him with a painful crunch. He simply prayed what he was thinking was wrong, he was just worrying too much.

"Sorry," he mumbled quickly. "I've got to go," and he hung up the phone before he really thought if this was a good idea. It still stayed in his hand, hovering by his ear.

"Is anything wrong?" Irene asked, she didn't like the way Sherlock had suddenly gone very pale.

"What did you say the name of the first song was?" Sherlock asked in an almost monotone voice.

"I didn't—"

"Tell me now then!" Sherlock snarled.

Irene was taken aback by his vicious reaction. "Vengeance is mine." She mumbled.

"Vengeance is mine," Sherlock repeated under his breath, more colour drained from his face.

"What is it Sherlock? What's happened?"

Sherlock Holmes didn't reply, but he knew exactly what had happened. There was no proof, but he just knew it. Two seemingly seperate incidences had suddenly crashed into one in his mind with a terrifying crunch. His hands suddenly became numb, the mobile phone fell from his hand and smashed onto the floor, but he hardly seemed to notice. Two things were just running through his head:

Vengeance is mine. John is missing. Vengeance is mine. John is missing.

Vengeance is mine.

John is missing.

* * *

_All the stuff I put about Epica in this chapter is true, there are an actual band, and an awesome one at that! If you like that sort of music :)_

_Anyway, just one chapter again, but a nice long one! I hope enjoyed, please review! :)_


	12. Partners

_Really sorry about the late update, I've been really busy and ill. To make up for it, I have updated two new chapters! :D So I hope you enjoy them! Reviews much appreciated :)_

* * *

Chapter 12

Partners

The DVD came the next day, Sherlock knew something would come, he just wasn't sure what, but as soon as he saw the thing lying on his doorstep, he knew that was it. There was nothing on the DVD apart from the words 'Epica's Journey One' written in red ink: Vengeance Is Mine.

Irene came to the house when Sherlock had almost finished watching the DVD on his laptop for the second time; he had expected her to come along as well. She had been silent when she had left the night before, and she was just as silent now when she walked through the door. She seemed to come in with the same authority as she did yesterday, but this time she was more solemn and less confident. Irene stood silently by his side and watched the last few seconds of the DVD.

The DVD was black and white and had a bird's eye view of a large room; Sherlock immediately deducted it to be a view from a security camera. The picture wasn't clear, but it was obvious what was happening. Two men stood only a few feet away from each other. One of them was John Watson, just by the way he stood Irene could tell that he was tense with anger and frozen with fear. The other man Irene didn't recognise, he had a gun in his hand and he was laughing about something.

"Sherlock would have listened!" Were the only words the man yelled.

The figure of John Watson, who suddenly seemed so small on the camera, flinched at these words. His eyes darted upwards to the ceiling, and suddenly fixed on the security camera. He stared at it for a few moments; his eyes were nothing but two black pinpricks on the camera. The other man suddenly realised what John was looking at, so he turned and fired a single shot at the camera.

The screen went black.

There was a long silence.

"I'm sorry," Irene said, she couldn't think of much else to say, and those two words would do nothing to help this situation, but she knew she had to say something or else this terrible silence might last forever.

"It's not your fault," Sherlock said in a low grumble. He was still staring at the black screen, unblinking.

"Who was that man?" She asked.

"He's a dead man." Sherlock replied in a monotone voice. "He should be dead, he's meant to be dead and he deserves to be dead. His name is Jim Moriarty, he likes to play games, but if you lose the game people die. I've only met him once, and I thought that it would be the last time I saw him, I left him for dead. Something told me that he was probably still alive, but I didn't listen, I didn't want to listen. John knew though, even Moriarty knew that he knew, and yet he still didn't tell me." Sherlock put his head in his hands. "He should have told me," he mumbled.

Irene said nothing. When she had asked Mycroft for Sherlock's help, he had gone through a whole list of things why she shouldn't. She tried to listen for as long as she could and pretend to remain interested and concerned, but she had to admit that Mycroft was a very boring person. Sometimes she wondered why she was friends with these people who worked with the government, because in her opinion they were all as dull as the next, and the whole thing was a risk, if they found out who she really was, there would be trouble. Besides, she had already made up her mind that she wanted to hire Sherlock Holmes.

There was however something that she remembered Mycroft had told her; Sherlock had no emotion towards anyone or anything, and if he did he tried his best not to show it. When she had first met Sherlock she had believed Mycroft, his face was expertly concealed from showing any thought or feeling. But now here she was, in Sherlock's house after he had realised that the only friend he had had disappeared, and she was pretty sure that he showing some sort of emotional reaction to this, even though she couldn't see his face. He was worried and he was upset, and quite probably he blamed himself for what had just happened. She hadn't expected this.

Silence had fallen again, Sherlock was motionless, Irene wasn't sure if he was even breathing.

"Sherlock, are you all right?" She asked cautiously, knowing this was a stupid thing to ask.

"I'm fine," Sherlock choked, taking his head out of his hands and looking into Irene's eyes for the first time that day. He had forgotten how stunning they were.

"You look like you haven't slept." Irene said, taking in the dark rings around his eyes.

"Sleep? I don't need sleep." Sherlock grumbled.

It was true though; Sherlock didn't even try to get sleep that night, because he knew that he wouldn't be able to. He couldn't stop thinking about John. He could be anywhere; he could even be dead. But Sherlock tried not to think about this, he kept on telling himself that John was still alive, and this was proof, if he wasn't what was the point in sending the DVD? Moriarty might have well just sent Sherlock his head…no, that was a horrible thought, he couldn't think about that. John was still alive. But even that brought Sherlock worry and sorrow, if John was alive, he had been in the hands of Moriarty for at least two days now, and he didn't wish that on anyone.

But there was something else that fought its way to the centre of Sherlock's mind whenever he tried to push his thoughts about John away, and that was Irene Adler. He couldn't help remembering the way he just swept into his home, with her tantalising smile, her witty words her beautiful eyes, and her short skirt. Sherlock felt like a fool that he couldn't stop thinking about Irene, when there was obviously a lot more important things to think about, but he couldn't stop picturing her in his head, and he didn't know why.

The two separate people raced around his head for hours as the rest of London slept on. Sherlock had spent the whole night pacing up and down; the dark floorboard had now lost its colour and was covered in scuff-marks. Sherlock had only sat down when the DVD had appeared at his doorstep. He hadn't tried running after whoever might have sent it; they would have already disappeared.

"Do you think this has something to do with Garrison Smith?" Irene asked, not sure if this was perhaps the right thing to say, it sounded like she was bringing the subject back to her problems. But maybe it would put Sherlock off the thought that his friend was missing and there seemed to be no way to get him back at the moment.

"Yes, Moriarty says he was the one who ordered the death of Garrison Smith," Sherlock replied in his monotone voice.

"Do you think he wanted Garrison to die of a spider bite?"

"This is his game, he probably found the thought of that sort of death quite amusing. That's the sort of person he is, and there may be more people lying in the gutter, killed by a spider and yet no one knows, or no one has realised, the only reason we found out was because you owed Garrison some money. Perhaps we should tell the police what we've found, they might have a few more dead bodies—"

"No," said Irene suddenly and surprisingly quickly, she hurriedly thought of something to say as Sherlock raised his eyebrow at her. "I think this has gone beyond the police. If we tell anyone else, that would just put more people in trouble." She pointed out.

"I suppose so," Sherlock said slowly, something inside his head was telling him that Irene was lying again, but his mind was too focused on Moriarty's new game to take much notice.

Sherlock realised, with a slight surge of anger, that the last game Moriarty had played with him had been a lot easier, because at least then he was given more and clearer clues, in a way and he knew he had a mystery to solve. Now all Sherlock knew was that John was in trouble, and a lot more people were going to die. Perhaps John was the key to whatever Moriarty was planning, Moriarty told John in the video that he would explain everything, if he did then John would know, but he might be the only person. Sherlock needed to find John if there was any chance of him working out what the hell was going on. All he knew was that it had something to do with a factory, something was being created that would make people fall like flies; no one was safe, especially around him…

"Sherlock why are you staring at me?" A voice suddenly asked through the buzzing of Sherlock's mind.

Sherlock didn't reply, instead he stood up suddenly and went over to his front door, not listening to Irene's questions about what he was doing and what was the matter. He simply held the door open and stared at her with an almost angry look in his eye.

"You have to get out." He told her.

"Get out? Sherlock what are you talking about?" Irene demanded, almost laughing.

"You can't stay here, you have to get out." Sherlock ordered again, he was still holding the door open, but Irene hadn't moved.

"What have I done?" She asked.

"You haven't done anything, that's the point, they don't know about you yet and it's got to stay that way, but it won't if you stay here. You need to leave, I can take care of things from here."

"And who's going to help you find your friend?" Irene pointed out, folding her arms across her chest and raising her eyebrow.

"I'll help myself, I know perfectly well what I'm doing, but I don't want you to get into trouble just because of me."

There was a pause.

"You're very sweet Sherlock," Irene said suddenly, smiling her beautiful smile at him.

Sherlock blinked in surprise, wondering why she hadn't left yet and why she was complimenting him all of a sudden. "I'm what?"

"You're worried about me, and that's very sweet, but I can assure you I can look after myself."

"And I can assure you that you have no idea what you're committing yourself to if you don't walk out that door."

"But I'll never know if I do," Irene became serious again and gazed into Sherlock's eyes. "You can shut that door Sherlock, because I'm not going anywhere. We're partners in this now Sherlock, you helped me find my man and now I'll help you find yours. You can't do this on your own and I think you need someone to look after you or else you might starve yourself to death or die of sleep depravity. I'm sticking with you because that's what partners do, and don't even bother trying to make me leave."

With that, Sherlock shut the door. He had never met such a person like Irene Adler, determined to stick by him and not caring what danger she would get herself in doing so, as if she cared for him and they had known each other for years. But deep down he was glad Irene had stood her ground, he didn't really want to see her leave.


	13. The Other Friend

Chapter 13

The Other Friend

"It's been three days John." A voice suddenly said through the terrible, echoing silence.

John lifted up his head, rubbing the back of his neck as he did so and blinking in the daylight. He had just started to fall asleep, or at least let his mind sink into a world of darkness and nothing, he doubted it would be possible in such a situation as this to fall asleep. John gazed around the warehouse, the same place he had been for three days. Nothing much had changed, apart from the fact that it had finally stopped raining, although there was a constant drip, drip, drip, somewhere from something that had a leak, John was also sitting in a chair that hadn't been there when he had first entered the warehouse. It was the only thing that Moriarty had given him over the past couple of days, apart from a headache. The chair was uncomfortable and stiff, but it was the only thing that John had that was close to comfort, and he was silently grateful for it. It was better than sitting on a cold damp floor anyway.

"Three days, and do you know what? I'm getting bored." Moriarty informed John as he walked into the room and stood in front of him, arms folded.

"You're bored? How the hell do you think I feel?" John almost laughed; he focused his eyes down on the floor. He didn't want to look in Moriarty's face, he might just try and throttle him in a blind rage, and that would just lead him nowhere apart from a bullet in the head. Moriarty hadn't warned him of this, but it didn't take a genius to guess what might happen if he acted foolishly.

Moriarty pretended to ignore this statement, but John imagined that he found it amusing, and that something close to a smile would be creeping onto his lips. Moriarty seemed to come and go, in fact John had bearly seen any of him over the past three days. He wondered what Moriarty might be doing while he wasn't in this room taunting him with conversations about killing people.

As soon as Moriarty left the warehouse the first time John went around the whole room, searching every inch to see if he could find a way out, including the two doors, which were unsurprisingly locked. He spent an hour working out a way to open one of the doors; only to be met by a rather nasty looking and armed guard. John didn't even try a second time to get through the doors, the threat to shoot him in the leg had been enough, he knew the guard wouldn't be joking. Deep down he knew the search for a way out would be in vain. Moriarty wasn't stupid.

But he would get out of here, somehow. If he had enough days left to live to find a way out…

A sudden, sheering pain hit John in the stomach as he thought this, and he almost cried out in pain. He tried not to show Moriarty the fact that he was so hungry it hurt, but he wouldn't be surprised if Moriarty already knew that lack of food and nothing but rain water was beginning to get to him. John wondered how long he would be able to go on before he actually starved to death. He looked up at Moriarty then, who was still staring at him, and seemed to know what he was thinking.

"You're a Doctor, how long do you think you'll last?" He asked sternly.

"Longer than you probably want me to," John replied in a bitter tone, not sure what else he could really say to something like that. He didn't really want to think about how long he might last.

"It would be a shame if you starved to death, don't you think? Otherwise this would have all been a waste of my valuable time." Moriarty said, turning and beginning to pace slowly up and down the warehouse, looking up at the ceiling and windows as if admiring how the building was made.

John didn't reply.

"I'm surprised I haven't at least heard anything yet. I had a clear message delivered yesterday, I would have thought Sherlock might have reacted a little. But apparently, no one's even been seen leaving the house. Don't you think that's a bit odd?"

"He can go for days without leaving the house." Was all John replied in a dead tone.

"Yes, but usually his friend hasn't been kidnapped." Moriarty pointed out.

"Well perhaps you've just got the wrong friend."

A sudden silence filled the room as Moriarty stopped pacing and turned to face John, he immediately regretted saying anything. His eyes fell guiltily to the floor.

"Wrong friend?" Moriarty repeated.

John said nothing, but his mind eye was suddenly filled with the image of Irene Adler. She was the only other person Sherlock was talking to at the moment, and John knew that Sherlock liked her, even thought he denied it. He really hoped that Moriarty couldn't read minds, that he would ignore his statement.

But by the way Moriarty began pacing again, and how when he talked he was surprisingly calm, John knew he had worked it out.

"Now I had always assumed that Sherlock Holmes only had one friend, if you would call yourself a friend. After all, leaving someone to the luck of the Gods after they had gone missing would be more a person did to an unwanted pet."

Still John said nothing, he kept his eyes fixed to the ground, but he could hear Moriarty's footsteps coming towards him again.

"But if you say I've got the wrong friend, that implies that there's another friend." Moriarty continued.

A silent reply.

"Another friend, the other friend. I'm assuming you know who this is." This was more of a statement than a question.

"I couldn't say, all I meant was he's obviously made other friends while I've been here," John mumbled, trying not to show his sudden nervousness and fear.

"No, you're lying to me, you know there's someone else." Moriarty said, he had begun to pace around John now, who tried not to follow the sound or sight of his footsteps. Moriarty was like a snake circling its helpless prey, waiting for a point to strike.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know more about it than I do." Moriarty was beginning sound irritated now. He stood just behind John, and leaned over so that their heads were next to each other, less than a few inches away. John wished he had a knife to stick in the man's throat. "Who is the other friend John?"

There was silence as John clenched his fists in hatred.

"Who is it?"

"I do not betray friends," was all John replied.

Moriarty straightened up again and let out a sigh of obvious annoyance. He was still standing behind John.

"Fine," was all he replied, "fine."

Something came slamming down on top of John's head. He wasn't sure what it was, but he assumed it was the handle of the gun that Moriarty had decided to carry with him all the time. The blow to the head took John completely by surprise, even though he knew that Moriarty was angry. For a few moments the whole world shook and room blurred. It was a few seconds before John felt the first trickle of blood run through his hair.

"You've disappointed me John," Moriarty said with another sigh. "I would have thought that after him abandoning you, you would do the same thing."

"You obviously don't have much experience of friends," John said with a harsh laugh as if he was trying to cover up the pain that was rocketing through his head. He gingerly brought his hand up to his head to feel the damage that had been done.

"Never mind," said Moriarty, ignoring what John had just said. "I'll find out anyway, it's quite easy. There aren't that many people close to Sherlock. I can use them as well then. You just better hope that they won't be as useful as you, or else I may just have to dispose of you in some way, and I assure you it won't be pleasant."

With that, Moriarty turned and walked out the room. There was the sound of footsteps, a door opening, a door closing, and finally a door being locked. Then silence.

John gasped suddenly, filling his lungs with cold air; he no longer had to hide his pain from Moriarty. He did nothing for a few minutes but rub his head gently and wait for the bleeding to stop. As he did so he began to curse. Curse damn Moriarty for everything that had happened, cursing himself for revealing something about Sherlock. He may not have said a name but he had betrayed him. How could he have been so foolish? He just hoped he hadn't caused as much damaged as he feared.


	14. Betrayal

_Bit of a longer chapter today with my attempts at writing some action! _

_Hope you enjoy! Reviews much loved :)_

Chapter 14

Betrayal

The cold air bit into Irene's skin as soon as she opened the door, she couldn't help shivering as her dark eyes stared out into the darker night.

"Are you sure you won't take a TAXI?" Sherlock's slightly concerned voice called behind her.

"No thank you Sherlock, I prefer it when I drive the vehicle I'm sitting in, and I could do with some exercise," Irene said, turning to Sherlock who was leaning against the wall of the hallway, watching Irene carefully. She gave him one of her smiles that made his ears go pink, which always amused her.

"You don't look like you need the exercise," Sherlock said almost stubbornly, looking at her up and down.

"Thank you," Irene replied sweetly, Sherlock gave her a confused look, she rolled her eyes. "When people are told they don't need to do exercise to lose weight they take it as a compliment."

"Oh," Sherlock said, he seemed to be thinking hard. Irene had noticed that he seemed to getting worse with his social abilities, perhaps it was because he was worried about his friend? "People tell me I need to eat more, is that a compliment?"

"It's whatever you think it's meant to mean Sherlock," Irene told him, rolling her eyes again. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"You'll be coming back?" Sherlock sudden sounded hopeful, and something close to a smile glimmered on his face.

"Yes Sherlock, we've been through this before, of course I'm coming back." Irene said, she would have found it a lot easier to stay over night, but it seemed her presence made Sherlock nervous during the day, and she didn't really want to be kept awake by the sounds of frantic pacing or a violin. No, She'd rather spend the night at her hotel, at least that was cleaner and the food was better and she could be alone with her own thoughts. "You will take care of yourself won't you?" Irene checked.

"Of course I can look after myself," Sherlock was now beginning to sound like a stubborn child, this was Irene's signal that now was probably the time to leave.

"See you tomorrow," Irene said again, before stepping outside and closing the door.

The first thing Irene thought as soon as she stepped outside was that she should have brought a coat, but she hadn't expected to be staying at Baker Street for so long. She took one last look at the warm house before getting on her way, and thought she saw a flicker of a curtain on the top floor window. She could just make out the figure of Sherlock standing by the window, and guessed that he was going to stand there and watch her leave. With this chill, she wouldn't leave him waiting long.

Darkness had fallen quickly that night. Irene seemed to be the only one walking the streets of London, which was unusual. She had always been told that London was the City that never slept, and on the occasions she had visited she agreed, but tonight she felt the only person who was still awake. The sound of her heels clicking against the pavement was the only thing Irene's sensitive ears could hear, and her sharp eyes gazed at the houses she passed, each one of them dark and drained of life.

As Irene walked on, her mind wondered back to the reason why she was walking along a dark road in the dead of night. She had expected to have met Sherlock Holmes, wait for him to get her money back and then disappear within two days, like she usually did. But it had been five days since Sherlock had found Garrison's body in the alleyway, and she was still there, she was even helping him find a friend that she had only met for a few minutes. Irene knew she would never get her money back now, so why was Sherlock still in her life? He wasn't like any other man that Irene had met, and she liked that, even though he did have a very unusual character. She felt comfortable being around him, despite the fact that Sherlock had connections with the police. Irene usually enjoyed running away whenever she found herself in too much trouble, but for some reason she didn't want to run from this, she was quite content in staying and seeing everything through to the end, whatever the end may be.

But what about after the end? Would she stay then? Would she keep contact? What if—

Irene halted suddenly in mid-thought, as she suddenly realised she was being followed.

It wasn't obvious at first, but Irene wasn't stupid, and she was quite used to being followed, or following people. She could hear the sound of life tracing her footsteps, she could feel her senses tingling with urgency and warning. The figure was about the same height as her, but a slightly bigger build – a man. Irene didn't know who it was, all she was certain of was that it wasn't Sherlock, this dark figure wasn't tall enough, and if Sherlock was following her, he would probably be better than this man, whose footfalls were louder than Irene's in the silent night. Irene stopped in the reflection of a shop window to watch the figure step behind a building to try and avoid her prying eyes. The man was wearing a large black coat with the hood up to cover his face; Irene had a feeling that he wasn't the only one.

Pretending that she hadn't seen or sensed anything, Irene continued walking forward at a slightly quicker pace. Her face was calm and steady, but she could feel her heart rate increasing as she diverted from her route to the hotel. She would sleep peacefully once she had shaken this man off her trail.

Turning a sharp left corner, Irene began to walk steadily down narrower streets, wondering if she should contact Sherlock and somehow tell him that she was being followed without the follower realising that she had noticed. But what would Sherlock do? It was far too dark for her to work out what street she had suddenly turned into and was rapidly walking out of, and Irene could look after herself perfectly well, she didn't need a man to depend on.

There was the sound of someone bumping into a bin on the right side of Irene, her eyes snapped over to the noise, but she could barely see anything apart from another silhouette figure hastily backing into an alleyway. She was right, there wasn't just the one person following her, she tried to restrain herself from laughing, these men were the worst and the noisiest stalkers she had ever encountered! This thought helped keep her mind calm as she continued to walk faster through the dark, swiftly turning round corners and down darker streets, her pursuers almost having to run to catch up with her.

More people were appearing now, Irene could bearly see them, but it was if she could sense their figures coming through the dark, their hurried footsteps coming from all sides towards her. She knew there was one coming towards her before she even saw the man's silhouette. She briskly turned away before the figure got too close, entering a small alleyway between two houses. Irene only stopped when she saw the alleyway came to a dead end and a large wall blocked her escape. The wall was too high for Irene to climb, but just as she thought that a huge silhouette of a man climbed over the wall and jumped down beside her.

She was trapped.

Irene's pursuers were making their steady way down the alleyway towards her. She couldn't help her eyes widening and her jaw dropping with fear for a few moments, but then Irene Adler made herself tall and stern, ready to face her attackers.

Her followers had been planning this all along, they wanted to get her trapped down an alleyway, they wanted her to know she was being followed, so she would change her direction. They knew she would head away from the safety of the hotel so she could be herded so easily into a trap. But this would soon be over; there weren't many who could successfully hunt down and out-smart Irene Adler.

The man who had climbed over the wall was the first to come close enough for Irene Adler to react. He held a torch in his hand and shone it over her face, she caught a glimpse of a face hidden under a black hood, and a gold tooth as the man smiled menacingly at her. But he hardly had chance to do anything else, instead his eyes widened with shock as Irene suddenly lashed out and kicked him in the chest. He stumbled backwards, dropping the torch from his hand, and slumping to the ground.

The footsteps behind Irene Adler stopped suddenly, as the other four men in the alleyway saw what she had done through the dim of the torchlight and were beginning to doubt if this was going to be easy as they expected. With another swift movement, Irene stamped on the fallen man's torch.

Everything fell into darkness. The predators were about to become the prey. They couldn't see Irene whip out a knife that she always had on a strap on her thigh. She couldn't see the men any more, but she remembered where they were standing, and the silence that followed the darkness told her that they hadn't moved. She took aim and threw the knife.

From the choking gasp that followed, and something slumping to the ground, Irene knew that the knife had landed right on target; in the neck of one of the men. There was a shout from the two that remained standing as they rushed towards her, not sure what to do any more, or if she unarmed. Irene was unarmed, but she didn't need weapons. One of the men advancing swiftly towards her pulled out his own torch as he ran, and just managed to catch sight of a healed foot landing squarely on his nose as his light flicked on. There was a sickening crunch and a thud as the man's nose shattered and he fell, his head colliding with the hard ground.

Irene's senses were alive, there was only a thin trail of light from the torch now lying on the ground, but she felt like she didn't need the light, she knew each step the man in front of her was going to take, what move he might try to make. She heard a shuffle as the man behind her began to sit up again, recovering from his blow to the chest. She hardly needed to look behind as she kicked her foot and let her heel collide with the man's skull. He stopped moving. Irene wasn't sure if he was dead or alive, and for now it didn't matter, she just managed to catch sight of two large hands reaching towards her throat from the one remaining attacker before she punched him hard in the throat and then the chest. He reeled back, choking and gasping for breath. Irene let herself smile for a few moments; this was easier than she had expected!

There was a click as someone behind her released the safety catch on a gun.

"Don't move," a gruff voice ordered.

Irene froze, her hands half clenched into fists as she prepared herself to attack again, but she knew that she couldn't defeat a bullet. She stood as still and as calmly as possible as she felt the barrel of the gun press against her head. She felt so foolish, why didn't she question the fact that only four of the five men had tried to attack her, while one just stood in the background, watching through the darkness. It had been too easy, that was the problem, Irene had been expecting a weapon to come out at some point, but for the few moments in which she had been winning, it had completely slipped her mind.

There were stumbles and groans around Irene as a few of the men managed to pull themselves up off the floor, both had blood trickling somewhere from their faces because of her fine fighting skills, which she was secretly pleased about. But her face soon fell as she heard other hurried footsteps come down the alleyway, two other men joined the three that were still standing. She didn't dare try to fight them off this time. The five men who were circling around her, and then stood silently.

The man with the gun was the first to speak, he moved round a little so he and Irene were face to face. She could just about see his silhouette from the torch on the ground, but that was it.

"You are friends with Sherlock Holmes." He said, it wasn't a question.

"What?" Out of all the questions a man could ask when their victim was held at gunpoint, this wasn't one Irene had expected.

"You are friends with Sherlock Holmes." The man repeated.

"Yes," Irene said, straightening her back to make herself seem taller, there was no point lying to the man, he already knew. She held firm eye contact with him to show that she was not scared. She decided to play the same game as him, or see if she could. "You know Garrison Smith," she said suddenly.

"What?" The silhouette in front of her hesitated.

"You work at a factory? Someone was causing trouble there." Irene explained to the man, drawing in the knowledge she had learned over the past few days, and hoping that would save her, or at least buy her time.

"We do not work _in _the factory," the man told her, sounding like she had just insulted him.

"But you know the factory," Irene said. The man had used the word 'we', she assumed he meant the other men standing around her, and the factory was definitely involved, even though she didn't know how. She didn't even know what factory she was talking about, but the men did, and that at least was something.

"We work for the man at the factory, if someone causes trouble, he tells us to kill them." The man said.

"With a spider bite?" Irene replied.

"Would you like to find out what that's like?" The man asked. "Or would you like to stop asking me stupid questions?"

"What do you want with me?" Irene was quite sure that wasn't a stupid question, and she was pretty sure the man had no spider with him, but he did have a gun.

"Your name is Irene Adler?" The man checked before continuing.

"Yes."

"We have a little job for you."

"What's my payment?" Irene asked, her eyes narrowing a little. She was given 'little jobs' quite a lot, but never in these sort of circumstances.

"Your payment is that we don't kill you." The man told her, there was a slight tone of amusement in his voice.

"What if I don't accept the payment?" Irene demanded, her eyes narrowing.

"Then we kill you." The man told her bluntly.

"What's the job?" Irene said as casually as she could. She thought she heard one of the men standing behind her snigger, the hairs of the back of her neck bristled with anger, but there was nothing she could do.

The man shoved something into Irene's hands with his free one. Irene took it and felt it carefully, she didn't look down from the man's eyes, but it was quite easy to work out what he had just handed her.

"This is a gun," she said, holding it up.

"Well done." More sniggers from behind.

"What's the job?" Irene repeated, trying to control her anger.

"You know Sherlock Holmes."

"Yes."

"Then your job is to kill him."

Irene stared in horror at what the man had just said. She wanted to ask him to repeat it, but she had heard him clearly enough, there was no possibility that she had misheard him.

"I cannot kill a friend." Irene said, praying that the men didn't hear the slight tremor in her voice as she spoke.

"You just killed one of mine," the man told her. Irene risked a quick glance to the body lying on the ground, the knife still sticking out of his neck. "And I thought people like you don't have friends."

"What if I refuse the job?" Irene demanded, although she already knew the answer.

"Then you will be the one who dies." The man replied, "I'm sure it would be a lot better if you were the one who killed Holmes instead of anyone else, or else it might not be as quick. You have one bullet, that's all you need. Don't even try to use it on one of us, because we'll simply kill you."

Irene could feel her anger inside her being replaced with resignation, it wasn't something she was used to. "You make it sound like I've already made my decision." She sighed.

"I don't think you really have a decision to make," the man pointed out. "But don't shoot him yet, wait until the right moment."

"What's the right moment?" She asked.

"You will take the job?"

There was a brief pause as Irene calculated the chances of her coming out of this alive, and when she realised they were practically nil, she wondered if she could live with herself for killing a friend.

But the man with the gun did not want to wait around for an answer. "Will you take the job?" He repeated.

"Like you said, it seems I have no choice." Irene said bitterly.

"The right moment will be obvious to you when the time comes." The man replied.

And with that, all five surviving men, with their job done, slipped out of the alleyway and disappeared into the night. They vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, but this time, they were silent.

Irene Adler stood frozen, alone in the alleyway with a dead body beside her and a gun in her hands.


	15. Watson Runs

Chapter 15

Watson Runs

John had given up just sitting in a chair waiting, by the forth day he spent most of the time pacing, and trying not to think about this was what Sherlock did all the time, and if he was turning into him. One thing that he felt for certain now was that Sherlock wasn't going to come and find him.

It was a horrible thought, and John took up most of his energy trying to suppress the surge of despair that built up inside of him. If Sherlock wasn't going to find him, he was a dead man. But John couldn't give up that easily, he had to try and put up a fight. If no one was going to come and save him, he was going to have to find a way out himself. There was no point just waiting for something to happen.

There were only two armed guards keeping an eye on John, he could see their dark clothing through the window on the doors. They were there almost the whole time, apart from when Moriarty came into the room, which was the only time when they seemed to be relieved of their duty, or at least didn't stand right outside the door. Was it possible for Moriarty to feel so confident that he didn't even need the guards around when he talked to John? It was possible, which meant he might have just offered his own prisoner a way out.

John spent most of the time watching the guards, knowing that between him and them, lay freedom. He had managed to get a close look one of the guards twice, first when he had tried to open one of the doors, and the other earlier that day, when the guards came him and gave him some food. This was the first time he had been given something to eat since he had arrived, but John wasn't sure if this was a good thing. Why did Moriarty want to keep him alive? What else did he have in store for him? Surely soon his patience would run out.

But that wasn't the point, what was more important at the moment was that John now had more energy, he was able to think straight and start thinking about an escape plan.

Although John could tell by the size of the guards and the guns they carried with them that he would not be able to fight them, there was something he had noticed. The guards were at a disadvantage when it came to the setting. The warehouse doors had not been designed for keeping an eye on prisoners, and there was only a small gap for them to pear through. There must be a blind spot somewhere; all John had to was find it.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, one of the guards outside John's door contacted Moriarty.

"What is it?" Demanded the slightly irritated voice down the radio the guard clutched in his nervous hand, the last thing he wanted to do was to anger his boss.

"Sorry Sir, but we've got a bit of a problem." The guard explained.

"What sort of problem? Everything's going to plan."

"It's the prisoner Sir, he seems to have err," the guard paused, trying to think of the best way to tell his boss what had happened without sounding mad, or making himself the next victim.

"He seems to have what?" Moriarty snapped.

"He seems to have disappeared Sir."

"What? He can't disappear, that room is secure, he must still be in there. There isn't any way he can get out unless he goes through one of the doors which _you _are supposed to be guarding."

"I know Sir, he hasn't left the room, but we can't see him." The guard tried to explain again.

"What?" There was an irritated sigh. "You're making no sense man. Give me a few minutes, I'll be down to see what all the fuss is about."

John knelt in the corner of the room; close enough the door to hear the worried conversation with the guard, but in the right position so that neither guard could see where he was hiding. This was exactly how he planned it, he just hoped what he had in mind would work, and he had enough energy to try it. He didn't even know what was going to be on the other side of the door, but he would find out very soon.

A few minutes later there was the sound of a key turning in a lock; John hesitated for a few moments as Moriarty came through the door. His eyes flicked around the room, now he was inside he would spot John quickly, but hopefully not quick enough.

"What's the game then John? You can't hide from me." Moriarty called out; his voice was still full of arrogance and confidence.

John knew that it would be now or never. He sprang to his feet and almost leapt onto Moriarty, kicking him in the face. Moriarty was, for once, taken completely by surprise, and he fell backwards with a yell. That was something that John had wanted to do for a long time.

John threw himself through the door and pushed the guard out of the way before the man could decide whether to help his boss or go after the prisoner.

"Stop him!" Cried Moriarty as John pelted down the corridor. He had no idea where he was going, but it was better than where he had been for the past four days.

There was a spatter of gunfire behind John as the guard opened fire, the bullets bounced off the ground close to John's feet, but not close enough. John reached the end of the corridor and took a sharp left, running down another corridor, the sound of the guard's footsteps close behind him. An alarm started to ring, soon there would be more after him, but John couldn't think about that, he just had to keep on running. He thought he heard more angry shouts from Moriarty, was he following too?

Another spatter of gunfire, this time closer. John thought he felt a bullet scrape past his elbow, but the adrenaline pumping through his veins meant that he hardly even noticed any pain. He didn't even hesitate, but he knew he had to do something or else the guard would just shoot him down.

John suddenly ground to a halt, his shoes squeaking on the clean corridor floor. There was a workman's kit lying on the ground, someone had been there but dropped it as soon as they had heard the alarm. John quickly took in what he saw - a couple of different screwdrivers and a large spanner. The spanner was all he needed. Knowing that the longer he stood still increased his chance of death; John grabbed the spanner and threw it at the guard. The guard, who seemed to be a rather stupid one, hadn't even seen the spanner coming. It hit him squarely on the forehead and he dropped like a rag doll. But there was no time for John to congratulate himself on his aim (such moves he had learnt from Sherlock), there were more shouts behind him, distant, but close enough to make his stomach churn. More guards were coming down the corridor towards him; he had to keep on running.

The whole maze of corridors seemed to be coming to an end, as John could see a double door in front of him, leading to a large room. The words _No Unauthorised Persons Beyond This Point _were written in large red letters across the doors. John ignored them and threw himself through the doors. He turned just in time to see the guards coming to a halt at the door themselves, they seemed to hesitate, as if they were unsure about whether it was safe to enter the room.

It was then John realised that he wasn't standing in a room, he was standing in a factory. A factory connected to the warehouse by the corridors he had just run through.

The factory was dotted with workers, who didn't seem to notice John standing there; perhaps they were paid not to notice anything. In the centre of the room was a huge machine that was full of…bottles of sports drink? John blinked, wondering if his eye sight was deceiving him, but there was no mistaking it. They were sports drinks, perfectly ordinary looking like the ones you would find in the supermarket, being transported in and out of the factory by the workers. The bottles were only half full, but the machine was filling them with a milky coloured liquid before being transported into a large crate.

John couldn't do much but stand there and stare at the sight before him, what the hell was going on? There was no doubt this was connected to Moriarty, but how? He had no time to think any more, the guards; they seemed to be more like soldiers, suddenly came bursting in through the door. John only had one option left: hide.

He dived around the machine; the huge beast almost filled the room and made it impossible for the guards to see around. John could hear one of them shouting orders, telling them to spread out around the machine, but not to touch anything. John did the only thing he could think to do; he dived under the machine itself, crouching down low and watching the guards' feet as they surrounded the machine. John remained perfectly still and waited.

Everything seemed to have fallen silent. Everyone seemed to have fallen still. The guards were waiting for John to make the first move, so thought quickly of what he should do. He couldn't hide forever, the guards weren't that stupid, he only had to breathe a little louder and would find hi—

A firm hand suddenly grabbed John's arm. He gasped with surprise and turned around just to see one of the guards half way under the machine as well. The guard wasn't trying to pull John out, that wasn't what he was intending to do, he held a hypodermic syringe in his hand, and John knew what it was for. He tried to pull away from the hand, but the grip was too strong. He tried to kick the guard off him but there was no room under the machine for him to move properly. The guard didn't even seem to notice John was trying to get away. He simply smiled with pleasure as he stabbed the needle into John's arm.

Suddenly, all the remaining strength left inside John drained away, as whatever drug he had just been given pumped quickly through the veins. He was dimly aware of being pulled out from under the machine by the guards, but he had no energy left to fight.

Darkness claimed him quickly.

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_This chapter sounds better when you're listening to creepy music…or perhaps that's just me! XD_

_Please review :D_


	16. Nightmare

_Warning: really nasty bit at the beginning of the chapter, I felt horrible just writing it :( _

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Chapter 16

Nightmare

Someone was crying, Sherlock could hear it through the darkness, he had a feeling he knew who it might be, but he couldn't be sure, the room was too dark. Something at the back of his head was telling him that it was a dream, but for now it felt so real, and so did the fear. The darkness was so frustrating; Sherlock fumbled for some sort of light switch, there had to be a light switch somewhere, he needed a light.

Suddenly Sherlock felt his hand press against a switch, and the room was filled with light. The room was small and bare, he didn't know where he was, but it didn't matter.

The only other thing in the room apart from Sherlock was a chair, and someone was sitting in the chair, they had their head in their hands and they were sobbing. The person had his back to Sherlock, who stepped closer, he wanted to see the man's face, he knew who it was, but he just wanted to make sure. At the same time he felt that he was too afraid to go any closer, just in case his suspicions were confirmed.

Everything was silent apart from the sobbing from the man in front of Sherlock. Suddenly the man spoke.

"Why haven't you found me yet?" It was only a quiet murmur of a voice. Sherlock didn't respond, he didn't know how too. The person seemed to have stopped crying, but he still had his back turned away. "Why haven't you found me yet?" The figure repeated in a slightly louder voice.

Sherlock didn't respond, he wasn't sure how, how could he explain to someone why he hadn't found them yet? But his suspicions were confirmed. He knew who it was.

"Why haven't you found me yet?" John said again.

It wasn't like John to cry, it wasn't like John to sound so afraid, to sound so angry. Sherlock dared to take a step closer.

"Why haven't you found me yet?" It was those words, over and over again, it seemed to be the only thing John could say, and yet Sherlock still couldn't find an answer yet, he took another step closer. John's voice was growing louder. "Why haven't you found me yet?" He demanded.

"John," Sherlock began, but he wasn't sure what to say. He reached an arm out to John's shoulder.

"Why haven't you found me yet!" John was close to shouting now.

"John I'm sorry—"

"WHY HAVEN'T YOU FOUND ME YET!" John shouted. Sherlock was so close to him now he could almost touch his shoulder, but John turned around first.

Sherlock gasped with horror.

He had often wondered, or rather feared, about what might be happening to John, but he hadn't expected anything as terrible as this.

Nothing had changed about John; he looked exactly like he had done the night he had left, right down to the clothes he was wearing. Except for one thing: his eyes were missing. Where his eyes were meant to be was nothing but red gauge marks, blood still dripping from them.

"WHY HAVEN'T YOU FOUND ME YET!" John yelled again.

Sherlock screamed and woke up with a start.

The first thing Sherlock realised when he woke up was that he was still screaming and gasping with fear. He stopped that quickly enough, but he could still feel beads of cold sweat trickling down his face. Sherlock looked around as if to make sure he was still in the same place he was when he had fallen asleep. He couldn't remember going to sleep, but he was lying on the sofa, which was normal enough for him. He sat up quickly and rubbed his eyes, thinking about what had just happened.

Sherlock couldn't remember the last time he had had a nightmare, had he ever had a nightmare? No, he must have, but a very long time ago, his brain had no time for nightmares, and weren't bad dreams meant for children? Yet here he was, sitting alone with the terrible images still flashing through his mind.

It was then Sherlock realised that he had had this dream before, several times over the past few days. The dream was exactly the same until John turned around and revealed something hideous that had happened to him; missing finger nails, removed ear lobes, but the eyes had been the worst so far, that was why Sherlock had woken up.

Irene came to Baker Street a few hours after he had woken up from the nightmare, by the time she had arrived he had already watched the DVD of John and Moriarty four times, and was just watching it for a fifth. Over and over again Sherlock watched it almost unblinking. He didn't care if every time he watched it the feeling of guilt grew inside him, which was something else he wasn't used to, but that was what Moriarty wanted.

"You know you might actually get closer to finding your friend if you got out of this house," said an irritating sounding Irene behind Sherlock.

"Is that so?" Sherlock replied in a monotone voice, not taking his eyes off the screen.

Irene sighed, she was in no mood to feel sympathy for Sherlock, as the thoughts of last night were weighing heavily down on her chest. She felt like she had already committed the hideous crime, and she wondered why she hadn't tried to make a run for it but had decided to come back to Baker Street instead. "Fine, don't take my advice, I don't care, I went and did it myself anyway. You may have heard of this place called a library? It's more productive than sitting around here all day, I researched the warehouses around here that have been bought and put to use recently—"

"Did you find anything?" Sherlock interrupted.

"I haven't had time to find anything useful yet Sherlock, that's why I photocopied the information and brought it here," Irene explained, dangling the papers in front of Sherlock's nose. "You're welcome," she snapped when there was no response to this.

"Why are you so angry with me?" Sherlock asked suddenly after a brief pause, turning around for the first time to glower at Irene Adler.

"Angry? When did I say I was angry?" Irene demanded.

"Body language says a lot more about a person than words," Sherlock explained, "you're usually quite a laid back person, but today you seem very tense. Have I said something that upset you?"

"No, you haven't done anything." Irene replied quickly.

There was a brief pause while Sherlock looked at Irene closely, "What happened last night?" He asked.

"I went back to the hotel, I had something to eat and I went to bed." Irene said with a shrug, the image of the man pressing the gun up to her head flashed up in her mind. She thought of the gun he had handed to her.

"But that's not the only thing that happened last night," Irene froze as Sherlock said this. Did he really know what had happened that night?

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied, fixing her eyes onto the papers in her hand. She tried to act casual but she could hardly breath,

"Well you must have done something, because by the look of it you couldn't have got more than three hours sleep last night."

"How can you tell?" Irene demanded, her hand automatically flashed up to her face as he said this.

"Your agitation and the dark rings under your eyes," Sherlock answered.

"I just had trouble getting to sleep, things were on my mind that's all. Why? Is there something wrong with my face?" Irene asked quickly.

"There's nothing wrong with your face, I think that's half the problem," Sherlock grumbled to himself.

"Are you going to talk to yourself for the rest of the day or are we actually going to look through the information I found?" Irene asked with a sharp sigh. "You can't trust technology all the time, that's why I just spent half the morning in the library."

"All right then, what have you found?"

Irene shoved the papers into Sherlock's hands. "There are five warehouses and factories in the surrounding area that have been bought and used recently."

Sherlock took the now crumpled papers and flipped through them lazily. "Interesting," he mumbled.

"You find the history of warehouses interesting?"

"Not particularly, but we're in the middle of a recession, factories are meant to be closing down, not starting up again." Sherlock explained.

"So are you suggesting that this has something to do with your friend and this Machiavel?"

"No."

"No?"

"It's Moriarty." Sherlock corrected. "A Machiavel is a type of villain used in theatre that is cunning, clever and representative of the devil*."

"What's the difference?" Irene mumbled, giving Sherlock a look which seemed to say she didn't really need or want that random piece of information and she was rather annoyed she had been given it.

"Moriarty has nothing to do with historic theatre."

Irene gave another irritated sigh, "Never mind, what are we going to do about these warehouses then Sherlock? This narrows down our search considerably, this has to help."

Sherlock shook his head, "It may narrow down the search, but not enough. We can't search five different warehouses and factories, it would take too long, and word would go around about what we were doing and Moriarty would be gone."

"What do you suggest then?"

"Try and narrow it down even further," Sherlock suggested, turning back to the computer screen and replaying the video. "Look, we can see from the video that it's obviously in a warehouse. But Garrison was working in a factory that Moriarty had a connection with, so there's a chance that the two of them might be close to each other—"

"Hang on, slow down." Irene told Sherlock, he turned to see that she was scribbling everything he had said so far down on a note pad.

"Is that my notebook?" He demanded.

"It was lying on the floor Sherlock, I assumed you weren't going to be using it any time soon," Irene replied harshly, not looking up.

"What are you doing with my note book?"

"What does it look like? I'm doing the efficient thing of writing everything down."

"Why?"

"Because then we can see a pattern," Irene hissed at him, she was reminded of a toddler who felt the need to ask for an explanation to everything. Did they really have time for this? At least his mindless talk was putting her mind off… She stopped herself quickly. "Carry on, what were you going to say?"

"There are smashed windows which may suggest vandalism, but no criminal would take his work somewhere where there would be regular trouble and interest to the police, so this instead suggests that the warehouse is quite old. Shall we say perhaps Victorian period? Possibly, most ugly things come from that era. It's also obvious that the warehouse is quite large…why have you stopped writing?"

Irene didn't reply, she had seen the pattern before Sherlock, though she guessed it would probably be best not to tell him this. Her memory had turned into a blur as she remembered walking passed a large warehouse, quite old looking with smashed windows. She had thought it odd that so many vehicles were stopping and starting by the factory beside it, suggesting that it was in use even though it looked closed. Everyone there seemed to act as if the place was invisible, and the workers acted as if they didn't exist, and of course the best way to hide from the law was to blend in with the rest of the crowd, that way you were almost undetectable. She had passed the factory the day she was going to meet Garrison Smith to give him the money; he had probably just come from work. It was so out the way of the main London streets as well, overall it was the perfect place for something criminal to happen, why hadn't she thought of it before? Perhaps because she was afraid of getting it wrong, but if she hadn't…

"I'll be right back," Irene said hastily to Sherlock before turning and rushing down the stairs.

"Hang on, where are you going?" She heard Sherlock call after her, but Irene didn't have time to sit around answering questions. If her thoughts were correct, then she had just worked everything out, and there was no time to lose.

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_*English homework actually came to use there! haha_


	17. The Poisonous Plan

_Could think of a decent name for this chapter, if you can think of something better feel free to share! :)_

_Please review! :)_

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Chapter 17

The Poisonous Plan

Everything ached. His head, his muscles, his very bones. John groaned as he dragged his eyes open, fighting against the blackness the drug had suppressed upon him. Feeling came through the numbing ache that seemed to have a hold upon everything. John steadily flexed his fingers, allowing gradual movement to come back to him. That was when he felt the cold metal knocking against his wrist, and the same thing on his ankle. He looked down and saw that he was still in the same chair he had been sitting in before when he had tried to make his escape from the warehouse, but this time he was handcuffed it. John didn't have the energy to curse at anyone, he just groaned again.

"You gave me a nose bleed," said an irritated voice suddenly. John looked up again to see Moriarty glaring at him. "Do you know how many people have given me a nose bleed?" Moriarty continued after John said nothing.

"That's a hard one, can I phone a friend?" John asked, grinning to himself despite his aching bones.

Moriarty couldn't see the funny side "Just you," he snapped.

"It was worth it," John grumbled under his breath, aware that he was still smirking, but he could hardly help himself. The memory of him smashing in Moriarty and the image of Moriarty with a nosebleed made him feel a lot better.

"I'll let you rethink that in a little while, and by then you would have stopped laughing," Moriarty told him harshly.

"All right then," John said, sitting back in the chair and keeping his face straight. "You're here, and it's obvious I'm not going to be going anywhere soon, so why don't you explain it all to me? The spiders, your factory, Garrison Smith and what looks like some sports drink. I've got the pieces but they're not fitting together, you said you would tell me and I'm asking nicely. What's going on?"

Moriarty dropped his cold glare and began to smile himself. "You know Sherlock would have already worked this out by now."

"I don't care." John replied through gritted teeth, he knew Moriarty was going to say something like that.

"Aww, have you lost faith in your little friend?"

"I don't care what Sherlock Holmes might have done. Sherlock Holmes isn't here and I don't think he's going to come. I'm not Sherlock Holmes, I'm a normal person so you're going to have to explain what's going on."

Moriarty shrugged, "Fine. I have to admit it does take the fun out everything if the other person works it out for themselves."

"I wouldn't know. I don't plot these sort of things for fun."

"I knew someone like Garrison Smith would try to ruin everything at some point, that's people for you, so rude, so greedy." Moriarty said as if John hadn't said anything, his voice was low and serious for once and tinted with spite. "The workers at the factory don't really know what they're doing, but of course they're not that dumb, if they try they'll work out what's going on. Garrison Smith wasn't the first to realise that the sports drink at the factory was being filled with a type of poison – a neurotoxic venom. The same venom that you might find in certain spiders, black widows for example. Garrison Smith realised that these sports drinks were being filled with poison and then were going to be sold around the country. People paranoid about their health would be dying because of something that was meant to give them energy so they could go the gym and get a healthier lifestyle, live a bit longer." Moriarty gave a horrible chuckle. "Quite ironic, don't you think?"

"Why?" Was all John could think to say to this. Why would Moriarty want to do such a thing? How many thousands of people drank energy drinks? How many thousands of people would be dead by the end of a month?

"I don't know," Moriarty shrugged, but then he grinned. "Power? Money? For the pure joy of destruction? Fun? Simple boredom? Take your pick! I knew it was something that Sherlock would notice within a few days, so he would eventually find out I was still alive. And have you noticed how everyone complains about how overcrowded the planet is? I thought I should do something about it instead of sitting around moaning. If you think about it, I'm doing the world a favour!"

"By killing people?"

Moriarty gave a sad sigh, but it was clear that he was still enjoying himself. "If you think about it John it was either that or have populations move to the moon." He pointed out.

"People will find out what's going on, that you're poisoning people, and they'll stop you." John warned.

"Yes, but not for a while. The police are so dumb by the time they work out what's going on dead bodies will be littering the streets and panic would take over the whole of London, maybe even the country. The drinks haven't been put on the market yet, but by tomorrow morning they will. Those drinks you saw being shipped out were the last to go, they'll be on sale in the shops in a matter of hours. Not even Sherlock Holmes will work out what's going on until lives have already been taken away. If your death won't destroy him, that probably will!"

"This isn't funny." John snapped suddenly.

"Of course it's not," Moriarty suddenly stopped smiling. "Not to you, because you care about people. But I'm afraid there aren't very many people like that left in the world now. Not even Garrison Smith cared about how many people were going to die, he just knew that if word got out what was going on there would be a lot of trouble, so he wanted money to keep quiet. Of course no one was going to give him any money, and _I'm _the one that gives threats, I don't receive them. Soon Garrison realised he had made a big mistake, so he wanted to try and run, but we found out he was going to run and stopped him before he could even get out of the country."

"With a spider bite?"

"Yes, spiders have been giving me great fascination recently. After using poison found in spiders I started using them as my signature murder, something else to keep me amused and much more interesting than the usual stabbing. If police find any more men lying in the gutter, poisoned by a mysterious bite, you can guarantee it would be because of me."

"But you tried to cover it up with stab wounds," John pointed out.

"Well I couldn't make it too easy could I? The people who I killed would not be missed, but when Garrison had to die I had a feeling he might attract more attention, and the great Sherlock Holmes would swagger into view. So I ordered to have a little message left for him on the wall: vengeance. From that moment the game with him had begun again. And I must admit I've enjoyed using black widows in this new game. Spiders have always amazed me, I think it's because they're so small, so insignificant, and yet they can be so deadly. I've got one here actually."

To John's horror, Moriarty pulled out of his pocket a match box, and when he slid the lid open, a thick, black leg pocked out. "This is the same black widow that put an end to Garrison, it's not pleasant and it's rather slow, but it worked."

Moriarty moved forward and held out the matchbox so John could see the small, fat body of a spider crammed into the box, it couldn't be larger than his thumb. A flash of red spread down its back and its delicate legs were moving steadily, sensing everything it touched to get a taste of its surroundings.

"Don't worry John, they're perfectly harmless," Moriarty said, a small smile on his face when he saw John squirm at the sight of the spider. "Unless you aggravate it."

"Like putting it in a matchbox," John replied, trying to remain calm, but he had a feeling he knew what was about to happen.

"That's one of the ways I suppose, but let's see what it makes of you." Moriarty leaned forward and turned the matchbox upside down, after a few moments while the spider struggled to stay inside the box, it dropped on to John's lap. John froze with fear. "Hmm, I think it likes you," Moriarty said as the spider started to crawl over John's leg. Moriarty suddenly turned and began to make his way to the door.

"Wait!" John blurted out before he could help himself; his whole body was tense as he watched the black widow. "You're not really going to leave me alone here with this, this thing!"

"Sorry John, but I've got no use for you anymore, as Sherlock isn't coming any time soon. And to be honest, you've been quite annoying, so I think you deserve this. As I said, a spider bite is my signature, so why make an exception? You won't have long before you irritate it, and then the spider will bite, and since I highly doubt you have any antidotes on you, the last thing you will feel in this life is a lot of pain. And the last thought in your head will be that you die for nothing, your death won't help the thousands of people who are going to die in the next couple of weeks." Moriarty gave a cruel smile. "Enjoy!"

And with that, Moriarty disappeared, leaving John alone with a creature that looked like it had crawled from the darkest of nightmares, and was searching for a new victim.


	18. The Race

Chapter 18

The Race

It took Sherlock less than an hour since Irene had suddenly ran off to work it out. He had been going through every warehouse within a twelve-mile radius, finding one that fitted his description. As soon as he had found the right one, double-checked it and then triple checked it, he grabbed his coat and scarf and ran out the house. He came to a sudden stop on the doorstep, the icy wind biting at his face. It was then that he realised he hadn't thought this through. He couldn't just walk into the warehouse like rescuing a friend was an every day objective, there was going to be trouble on the way. Sherlock needed something to protect himself just in case he got into any trouble; but he had just run out the house defenceless and his mind was in a frenzy, all he thought about was how he had to get a TAXI and—

There was a roar of an engine and Sherlock turned to see a sleek, black Ferrari pulling up by 221B Baker Street. The driver's door opened and Irene's head appeared, half of her body almost hanging out the door.

"Irene," Sherlock began hurriedly, "I've worked out where the warehouse is, it's—"

"Yes, yes I know," Irene snapped before he could even finish his sentence, "I've worked it out as well, why else would I be here?"

"Is this your car?" Sherlock asked suddenly, as if he had just realised that a very expensive car was suddenly sitting right outside his doorstep, and it looked brand new.

"I'm borrowing it." Irene replied.

Sherlock didn't look impressed, but he just stood on his doorstep staring at her.

This didn't please Irene Adler either, "Do you think we have time to stand around? Get into the car!" She snapped impatiently.

However, Sherlock seemed a little uneasy about this. "I'd prefer a TAXI," he said.

"TAXIs don't have two-hundred horse-power screaming under the bonnet," Irene told him happily, patting the steering wheel proudly as if the car was her pet.

"That particular type of Ferrari actually has two-hundred-and-eight horse power." Sherlock put in.

Irene rolled her eyes, "Well, that's even better!" She said.

"Not really, if I remind you that it is currently rush hour." Sherlock pointed out, looking the car up and down again. He still hadn't moved from his doorstep. It seemed the great detective didn't want to go near the car, as if it might attack him.

"Sherlock," Irene said, giving him one of her blinding smiles and leaning further out of the car. "Do you want to find your friend or not?"

"Yes." Sherlock said, he was beginning to sound like a stubborn child again.

"Get into the car then."

"But—"

"Now!"

"OK," Sherlock said sheepishly, hurrying down the steps of 221B and dashing across the road. Irene swung the passenger door open and he slipped inside.

"I still don't understand how having a large engine is going to help when we're going to be driving through London," he told her. Irene said nothing; she just smiled and revved the engine.

The car took off with alarming speed, Sherlock didn't have time to even to put on his seatbelt, and he was thrown into the back of his seat. He watched as Irene, who seemed to be enjoying the raw speed of the car, she could see out of the corner of her eye Sherlock looking up at her with a mixture of surprise and shock in his eyes. She smiled again as she pushed her foot down on the accelerator a little more, and seemed to forget the existence of the breaks.

The road at first was empty, but it wasn't long until Irene turned off onto a main road and cars began to fill it, slowly creeping along, coming to stop at traffic lights. Sherlock looked at Irene with something close to a smile on his face as the traffic proved his point to be correct. But Irene didn't seem to be bothered; she was still grinning to herself happily. Suddenly she twisted the wheel, and the car came completely off the road, throwing Sherlock about in his seat once more, and onto the pavement.

"What the—" Sherlock began.

"See, no more traffic now!" Irene told him happily as the car accelerated down the street. Shocked faces from people in cars could just be seen before the Ferrari swept away from them, the engines roaring like a lion.

"Watch for pedestrians, watch for pedestrians!" Sherlock almost screamed, gripping onto the sides of his seat.

"Pedestrians can watch for themselves," Irene replied, swerving smoothly past some horrified passers by as they walked down the street.

"You're insane," Sherlock managed to say when he had got his breath back.

"That's rich, coming from you." Irene pointed out, at first she sounded serious, but then she laughed. She was obviously enjoying the adrenaline rush that the harsh speeds gave her. "You want to get to your friend quickly? We're getting to your friend quickly. The race is on!" Irene shouted happily over the engine as they sped off down the street.

The speed of the car definitely came in useful, although Sherlock would never admit it. Irene was the only person who surprised him, and this event was no exception. After only a few minutes they came to a comparatively quiet side of London, nothing around apart from old, deserted-looking buildings. Finally Irene slowed the car down as it passed a large, old warehouse with broken windows and a factory right next to it. The Ferrari crawled to a stop right outside the warehouse, but the engine was still running.

Irene turned to Sherlock "I'll fine somewhere to hide the car, you find John," she said. There was a worried look in her eye now, but something more than that, something close to fear. Sherlock could tell there was something she hadn't told him.

But he pushed the thought aside, there was no time for that now. He was so close to finding John, and maybe he wouldn't be too late.

Sherlock ran off without looking back, unable to see Irene giving a sad sigh and slowly drive away. For once, she didn't feel like she was in control of the situation, and even though she had helped Sherlock as best she could, she could feel a heavy dread building up inside her; today, someone's time was going to run out.

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_Sorry about the short chapter, it's my attempt to build up suspense! I'll try and update soon to make up for it :)_

_Reviews much appreciated :)_


	19. Death at the Warehouse

Chapter 19

Death at the Warehouse

Sherlock should have known it was too easy, but he wasn't thinking straight. He was simply focused on what he wanted to do as he entered the old warehouse, slowing down from his run as he edged closer.

There was no sign of life at first; it was as if the whole world had fallen silent as Sherlock entered a large room that took up most of the warehouse. His eyes scanned the room quickly, taking in every detail, despite there being very little of them. His eyes fell to what he thought was the only other living thing in the room; a man, a prisoner, sitting handcuffed in a wooden chair…

"John!" Before Sherlock thought about what he was doing, he ran to John. Relief swept over him, he hadn't realised that in the back of his head he was thinking that his friend might be dead after all.

"Sherlock?" John seemed confused. His face was pale with fear and he was very thin, but he was alive. "I thought you never going to—what are you doing here?"

"I've come to get you out of here." Sherlock told him, crouching down so he could get a better view of the handcuffs.

"How did you get passed the guard?" John asked, still confused.

"There wasn't one," Sherlock said. He paused, something was telling him that this wasn't right, it had been far too easy, Moriarty knew he would come looking for John, so why would he get rid of the guard?

But he brushed the thought away.

"You have to get out of here Sherlock," John said suddenly, desperation clear in his hoarse voice. "It's Moriarty, he's putting poison into these sports drinks, he's trying to kill everyone. By this time tomorrow people might already be dead. You have to get out of here while you still can and do something!"

"I'm not leaving here without you," was all Sherlock replied.

"No, you have to get away from me Sherlock," suddenly, John's voice was firm, the fear was still there, but he was serious. It was as if he had already come to this decision before Sherlock had arrived. His eyes darted from side to side, as if he was searching for something.

"What?" Sherlock looked up from the handcuffs in confusion. "Why?" He demanded, but he didn't move away from John.

"You have to leave me alone," John snapped.

"I've just found you, I just can't leave you now, what's wrong?" Sherlock stood up and put a hand on John's shoulder as if to try and get his attention from his darting eyes.

"You can't touch me Sherlock!" John almost yelled at Sherlock, trying to draw away but the handcuffs stopped him.

"Why? John please tell me what's wrong."

John was really beginning to panic now, Sherlock couldn't make sense of what he was trying to say. "I, I don't know where it's gone! It could be anywhere, I don't know where it's gone!"

"What's gone?" Sherlock demanded, the panic seemed to be spreading from John to him, as he was feeling very uneasy.

"I don't know where it's gone!" Was all John said in his desperation, "I—" Suddenly John froze, his eyes grew wide with fear as he tried to lean away from Sherlock, his eyes were focused on Sherlock's hand. "Oh God," was all he managed to say.

Sherlock looked down at his hand just in time to see the spindly legs of a fat spider crawling up his sleeve. He froze; knowing immediately that this wouldn't be any ordinary spider. He was sure that this was the same type of spider that had killed Garrison Smith: a black widow. He watched it disappear up his sleeve and could feel its legs finding their way up his arm, making his hairs stand on end. Before Sherlock thought about what he was doing, he raised his free hand and brought it straight down on where the spider lay beneath his sleeve.

Horrible, green-yellow goo dripped out of his sleeve from where the spider had just crawled. Sherlock watched with disgust as the remains of the spider dripped onto the floor. He heard John breathe out a sigh of relief beside him, and he had to admit he felt the same. For he moment he thought he was in serious trouble.

Trying his best to put behind him what had just happened, Sherlock set to work on the handcuffs again. They were easy to break – another sign he should have noticed – and pulled John out of the chair.

"Are you all right?" He asked John.

"Yeah, I think I'm all right," John said, nodding steadily, but swaying a little on his unsteady feet.

"Come on, we have to get out of here—"

A highly amused, and yet deeply cold laugh echoed through the warehouse, making Sherlock and John freeze with horror.

"Aww reunited again, how sweet." Said Moriarty, strolling quite casually across the warehouse floor as if he had planned this all along, and he probably had. "Hello again Sherlock, have you missed me?"

"If it's possible to miss enemies," Sherlock said slowly, turning to face Moriarty. He made sure his voice sounded as cold as stone, he wasn't given away anything, but he did make sure that he stood between John and Moriarty.

"Well it doesn't matter anyway, because I'm back." Moriarty grinned. "You really thought I was dead?" He laughed, "sorry, you can't rid of me that easily."

"I've noticed," Sherlock grumbled.

"Did you really not notice how easy it was to get to your friend once you had found the warehouse Sherlock? Surely you must of thought I had tried to do _something _to slow down your efforts."

"You're doing it now," Sherlock muttered under his breath, hoping that Moriarty hadn't just heard him.

"I thought you had left," John said to Moriarty behind Sherlock's shoulder, for some reason he didn't feel scared, although he knew he should. "You had left me for dead."

"Sorry, that was a lie," Moriarty put on a fake look of guilt before smiling again. "Besides, you two had left _me _for dead remember? And you really didn't think I was going to miss your untimely demise?"

"Leave him alone." Sherlock said between gritted teeth.

"Aww isn't that cute! He's being protective!" Moriarty teased.

"I said leave him alone, he's done nothing wrong," Sherlock repeated, keeping his face and voice stern as he said this.

"He's friends with you, that's what's the problem." Moriarty replied, losing his smile. "And you agree with that don't you Sherlock? Although you keep your face like stone as if the words I'm saying don't carve into your soul like a dagger. You've been thinking that a lot recently, would John have disappeared if you hadn't stormed into his life?" He shrugged, "probably not. And you've let him down Sherlock, five days it took you to find him; it's almost as if there was something distracting you from finding your friend. I think John was beginning to lose faith in you."

Sherlock glanced behind him at John, who shook his head in disagreement to what Moriarty had just said. But Sherlock knew it was true, he had let his friend down, and he wouldn't be at all surprised if John had lost faith in him. In fact, he had begun to lose faith in himself, something he had never done before. The event had turned his world completely upside down, because Moriarty knew how to hurt him now, he knew he should have never made a friend, not in the world he lived in.

"If you're trying to make us enemies, it's not going to work," John snapped at Moriarty, who began to laugh again.

"You'll be pleased to know John I have no intention of doing so, and it would probably be harder than I would have anticipated if I did."

"Then let us go, you've had your fun, you don't need him any more." Sherlock snapped.

"Hmmm, let me think about that one." Moriarty rested his fist on his chin and pretended to think for a few moments. "Errr, I'm afraid that answer is going to have to be a no."

"Then what are you going to do now? Kill us?" Sherlock demanded, almost spitting out the words before wondering if this was a safe thing to say. But judging by the look on Moriarty's face, whatever he said was going to make no difference to their current situation.

"I'm afraid that answers going to be a no as well," Moriarty informed Sherlock.

"Then what do you want with us if you don't want to kill us?"

"Oh you're still going to die, I'm just not going to be the one who actually does it." Moriarty gave Sherlock and John one of his cruellest of smiles. "Have you ever considered Sherlock that you might have a betrayer?"

Sherlock glanced at John for a few moments, and then back at Moriarty. Through his mask of emotion on his face he let the look of confusion slip through, making Moriarty smile even more.

"No? I can tell you it's not John, after all he's been through he's quite loyal still, annoyingly. But there is someone else. Someone who you've been waiting to come in through that door as soon as I entered so she can stop me and you two can get away. I know that's what you have been thinking. But I'm afraid it's going to be the other way around."

"Sherlock what's he talking about?" John mumbled, but Sherlock didn't respond, he had gone very pale.

"Oh look, there she is now!" Moriarty said excitedly, looking over Sherlock's shoulder.

Sherlock and John turned to see who stood behind them, but Sherlock already knew, and he was already shaking his head with disbelief. Irene Adler came through the door Sherlock had passed through not minutes ago. Her high heels clicked against the cold stone ground as she came further into the room, the only sound in the silence. She looked pale and nervous, but she held a gun steadily in her hands.

"She was feisty at first Sherlock, but as soon as she knew there was no way out of it, she agreed to kill you. At the end of the day the only person Irene Adler cares about is Irene Adler. You used to be like that you know, and then you let other people into your lives, and look where that has lead you? To nowhere but trouble."

"No," Sherlock tried to say, but the word seemed to get stuck in his throat. All he could do was stare at Irene, who stared back as she raised the gun. How did he not see thing coming? It seemed so obvious, one day she was fine and the next she acted so suspicious and irritated. Why had Sherlock not noticed that something was wrong, something had changed?

As if from a long way off, Sherlock could dimly hear Moriarty laughing.

"I told you I would burn you," Moriarty told him. "How does it feel?"

"I'm so sorry," was all Irene Adler said before she pulled the trigger.

* * *

_Uh oh, another cliff hanger! _

_Hope you enjoyed the chapter :) please review! :)_


	20. I Will Burn You

Chapter 20

I Will Burn You

The bullet hit Moriarty straight in the chest. He hardly had time to look surprised as the force of the bullet flattened him to the floor with a grunt. For what only seemed like half a second, Sherlock, John and Irene stared in horror at the still body of Moriarty. John finally managed to open his mouth to say something:

"Did you just—" he begun.

"Never mind that." Irene said, turning quickly away from the body and discarding the gun. She had already turned back to her normal self, but her face was still pale. "What do we do now? Run?"

"Run." Sherlock nodded in hasty agreement and all three of them turned and fled from the warehouse.

They burst out suddenly into the bright sunlight, John had to shield his eyes with his arm from the sun; he hadn't seen the full sun for five days. Sherlock grabbed him by his free arm and almost dragged him as quickly as possible away from the warehouse.

"Where's the car?" Sherlock demanded to Irene.

"Round the back," Irene replied, leading them around the warehouse to where the black Ferrari sat waiting for them. Sherlock wasn't sure if Irene had even bothered to try and hide it; it would have stood out anywhere.

"See, a TAXI would have been better—" Sherlock began as he thought this.

"Just get in the car!" Irene snapped. There was a pause, "no, John hasn't insulted the car, he can go in the front, you can get in the back." She told him as she threw open the driver's door and jumped into the car, John got in beside her.

Sherlock stood there for a few minutes, absentmindedly rubbing his arm, before wrenching open the door and getting into the back of the car, where he found himself squished between the roof and the seat. He sat as comfortably as possible and glared at the back of Irene's head. "Where's the seat belt?" He demanded, annoyed.

"I don't think there is one." Irene admitted.

"This isn't really a back seat is it?" Sherlock commented.

"Then you can walk!" Irene almost yelled. She was sitting in the driver's seat now, her hands set firmly on the steering wheel and panting as if she had just run a hundred miles, but she didn't move. No one moved, everyone seemed to freeze as if the whole scale of events was just setting in.

A terrible silence set in the car.

"You just shot Jim Moriarty." Sherlock muttered into the silence.

"It appears so," Irene replied in a small voice.

"I thought you were actually going to kill me back there," Sherlock gave her a small, slightly nervous smile.

"So did I," Irene agreed after a pause, then she gave a smile too. "I only had one bullet, I was going to make good use of it. Turns out I've found someone who doesn't deserve to die."

"How thoughtful," John said suddenly, he seemed slightly irritated. "But can anyone explain to me where we're going to go now?" Was there always this banter between these two? Was this really the time? He just wanted to get as far away from the warehouse as possible.

"Good question," Sherlock said after another short pause, rubbing his arm again. "Police station?" He suggested.

Irene looked John up and down. "by the look of your friend, I'd say hospital,2 she commented.

"Why the hospital? I'm fine." John argued.

"Are you sure? Because if you feel as dreadful as you look, perhaps you should." Irene did have a point; John was very pale and thin.

"I'm fine," John repeated. "I don't need the hospital."

"Fine," Irene muttered. "221B Baker Street it is." And with a turn of a key the engine burst into life.

"Shouldn't we go to the police first though?" John suggested.

"I don't think that's really necessary," Irene said rather casually as she drove as fast as the London roads allowed down the street, turning onto the pavement every now and then when another car came in her way.

"I think it is, after what John told me." Sherlock told her as he narrowly avoided whacking his head on the ceiling as Irene bumped onto the curb. "And would you please drive a little slower!"

"What did you tell him?" Irene asked John, ignoring Sherlock's comments on her poor driving skills.

"The factory Garrison Smith was working in was filling some brand of sports drink with poison." John explained. "They'll go on sale, people will drink them, and then they'll die. The trouble is we don't even know what brand of drink has been poisoned. It could be any of them."

"But why would someone want to do that?" Irene demanded.

"Because he thinks it's fun," Sherlock muttered, more to himself than to Irene or John. He was starting to feel irritated, the inside of the car seemed so hot, it was like it was compressing down on him.

"But what can the police do about it?" Irene asked.

"Close down the factory, and every shop that sells sports drinks until they can find out which one has the poison," Sherlock suggested.

"Surely that would be bad for business." Irene commented.

"Does that matter more than people's lives!" Sherlock said, both he and John were now looking confused and shocked, surely Irene would care about the number of people who were about to die? "Why do have such a grudge against the police?" Sherlock demanded suspiciously.

"I don't," Irene argued, gritting her teeth once more, she sighed. "Fine, call the police if you must." She pulled her mobile phone out her pocket and handed it to John.

"Call Lestrade," Sherlock ordered John, who muttered some irritated reply before dialling a number and pressing the phone to his ear.

Sherlock sat back in the car and sighed. He stared at his shaking hands, as if such a thing was surprising. He assumed it must be shock, but why would he be in shock? _He _didn't kill anyone, and he had seen a lot worse things in his life. Sherlock didn't feel like he was in shock, and yet his hands were still shaking. He could hear John talking into the phone, but he sounded so distant, it was strange. Another jerk from the car almost made Sherlock roll off the seat, and he shouted Irene's name in annoyance.

"Well sorry!" She snapped back, "I thought you wanted us to run, if you had said walk away calmly perhaps I wouldn't feel the need to drive fast."

"Ssh, I'm on the phone!" John hissed at Sherlock and Irene, glancing at them irritably.

"Well get on with it then!" Sherlock almost shouted irritably, without meaning to.

John was about to reply rudely and turn to glare at Sherlock, but one glance told him that something wasn't right. "Are you all right Sherlock?" He asked cautiously.

"Of course I'm all right." Sherlock lied.

"Are you sure? You do look rather pale Sherlock," Irene commented, glancing back at him.

Sherlock was about to reply with the fact that he always looked pale and that perhaps Irene should concentrate more on the road, but he found the words caught in his throat as if he had suddenly lost the ability to speak. He didn't feel all right, not in the slightest. He was still shaking, worse than ever and cold beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. The heat of the car was getting worse, compressing down on him all the more. His mouth was dry and his heart raced inside his chest.

Anyone would have thought he had been poisoned.

It was then that Sherlock realised he had been poisoned.

There was a terrible burning pain in his arm; it seemed to be slowly spreading to the rest of his body through his blood stream. It was at the same place where the spider had crawled down his sleeve. Sherlock had been constantly rubbing his arm but he had hardly noticed anything was wrong, his adrenaline taking his mind off any discomfort or pain.

"Change of plan Irene," Sherlock managed to gasp. "It seems we might have to go to the hospital after all." He sounded perfectly calm, almost amused by what was happening, but inside Sherlock felt terrified as he rolled up his sleeves, expecting the worst.

Sherlock thought he heard Irene gasp and John swear, but it was hard to tell. It was clear they had worked it out as well, and his arm simply confirmed his fears. Where the spider had crawled before he had killed it were two small pinpricks, but the skin around the pinpricks was red and swollen. Just like on the body of Garrison Smith.

"Hold on Sherlock!" Irene yelled as she put her foot down once more and the Ferrari burst through the streets.

But Sherlock didn't hear her, he didn't hear John or Irene talking to him, trying to comfort him, they seemed so distant all of a sudden. Sherlock felt like he could barely move, all he could do was keep a firm grip on his arm as his body shook. His mind was clouding over, Sherlock tried to stay focus on what was around him, but it was almost impossible, everything seemed so far away.

Sherlock's last thoughts before he lost consciousness were how the terrible burning pain was creeping up his arm, reaching slowly towards his heart. The words uttered by Moriarty the last time they had met were spinning around his head. I will burn you.

I will burn you.

I Will Burn You.

I WILL BURN YOU.

* * *

_Hooray another cliffhanger! Now before anyone says anything, I'll admit am no spider expert, I don't know exactly what happens when you get bitten by a black widow or how long it takes, so just go with the flow :)_

_We've almost reached the end of the story! I hope you've enjoyed it so far._

_Reviews are awesome! :)_


	21. The Letter

Chapter 21

The Letter

John could see Sherlock's eyes actually light up when he came into the ward and up to his bed, he knew what the consulting detective was going to say even before he opened his mouth.

"Can I go home now?" He asked excitedly.

"I just asked the nurse, she said you'll be able to go tomorrow," John told Sherlock patiently, even though he felt like Sherlock had now asked him this question a hundred times.

Sherlock groaned and leaned back in his bed, staring at the plain ceiling. "I'm so bored! There's nothing I can do here! My mind has never faced such stagnation."

"Well hospitals weren't built for entertainment you know," John pointed out.

"I can't shoot the walls,"

"That's hardly surprising."

"They won't even let me play my violin!"

"I think that's because your playing might actually make the patients feel worse." John said, glancing around at the hospital ward. It was very quiet, there weren't very many nurses or doctors around, and the only other patients in the ward were asleep, or at least pretending to.

"But there's nothing to do here!" Sherlock continued.

"Sherlock you've only been here for four days." John pointed out, he had never met such an impatient person, why couldn't Sherlock actually understand and accept the fact that he was ill? John wouldn't have been surprised if Sherlock had never been ill in his life.

However Sherlock was not about to back down. "But most people recover from black widow bites within eighteen hours, maximum thirty two, it's been ninety-six!" He argued.

"They just want to make sure you're OK," John said. "Things could have been a lot worse."

That brought the two of them into an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.

"Do you really think Moriarty's dead?" Sherlock asked suddenly.

"Yes," John answered a little too quickly, and Sherlock raised his eyebrow, "no," he admitted. "When he was in the warehouse he mentioned the fact that he wore a bullet proof jacket, I wouldn't be surprised if he was wearing one when Irene shot him, because I bet he knew she might have reacted in that way."

"You know, I reckon he's always been in our lives, watching over us in the shadows," Sherlock said in a strange tone as if this didn't really bother him.

John nodded in agreement, but he didn't like the thought of it. He tried to think of something else to say to put Sherlock off these thoughts. "Mycroft's coming to visit later today." He said.

At this, Sherlock fell back onto his pillows with a soft _thumb_ and looked dreadfully pained. "No, not Mycroft!" He groaned.

This was the exact reaction John was expecting him to give and he tried not the laugh. He wondered about warning the nurses Sherlock might try to escape after hearing this news, the first time his brother visited had not gone well, but when did they ever get on?

"How come _you _can go home?" Sherlock demanded suddenly, sitting up and glaring at John.

"We went through this yesterday Sherlock, I've had my treatment, I feel better now, I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You still look pretty thin to me, in fact you've always looked a little too thin," Sherlock commented.

"I told you, I'm fine," John said as calmly as possible, but Sherlock was beginning to irritate him.

"You said that when we got to the hospital, and then you passed out on the floor," Sherlock reminded him.

"At least I didn't go into a coma for six hours!" John blurted out without meaning too.

"Really?" Sherlock said after a short pause, "I thought the first day went quite quickly."

John didn't reply, he just rolled his eyes. How could the consulting detective not take a coma seriously? He supposed that's what being stuck in bed for four days does to someone like that.

"So what did I miss over those six hours?" Sherlock wondered aloud.

"Well, Lestrade came to visit."

"Really!" Sherlock looked just as surprised as John was when Lestrade had come through the hospital doors.

"Yeah, he didn't believe a word I told him about the drinks, and it took me a while to persuade him we were actually in a hospital. When he came along and saw you I think it was a bit of a shock."

"Really?" Sherlock said again.

"Yes, I think that most people don't believe that Sherlock Holmes can actually get sick." John replied.

Sherlock smiled to himself at that thought, but then his mind turned to other things. "So Lestrade managed to stop the drinks in time? No one's going to be poisoned?"

"No one's going to get poisoned today." John assured him. "And hopefully no more poisonous spiders either," he added with a slight shiver. It was then he remembered something. "That message on the walls, did you ever find out what that meant?" He asked.

"Vengeance is mine."

"Well, that explains a lot."

There was another stretched of slightly uncomfortable silence.

"What happened to Irene?" Sherlock asked abruptly, glancing around as if she might be hiding somewhere. He had suddenly realised he hadn't seen her since he was in the Ferrari with her and when she took him into the hospital.

"I don't know, when I came round she asked if you were going to be OK, and the doctor said yes, then she said something about moving the car and disappeared." John explained.

"And she never came back?" Sherlock guessed.

"Not here, but when I went home last night there was a letter for you left on the table." John explained.

"A letter?" Sherlock repeated, confused.

John nodded and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Sherlock. On one side of the paper were the words "For Sherlock" written in neat writing and thin black ink. There was no doubt it was Irene's writing.

"Have you read it?" Sherlock checked before taking the letter from John.

"Of course not, unlike you I don't read letters that aren't addressed to me." John told him.

"Why couldn't she send me a text or an e-mail?" Sherlock demanded, deciding to pretend that he hadn't heard what John had just said, and took the paper from him.

"Perhaps because it was something more important to just be sent to you by text," John mumbled as Sherlock unfolded and read Irene's letter:

_Sherlock,_

_You had to bring the police into this didn't you love? I hoped we might be able to avoid that consequence, but it seems that you did what you believed was right, even if it might be a bad thing for others. I have to admit I don't like that, I respect you for it, but I don't like it._

_I suppose from the moment you picked up this letter you knew it meant you would probably never see me again. _

_Believe me, it's not your fault. Perhaps I should have told you the truth, but old habits die hard. As soon as you got the police into this, I had no choice but to leave. If you're still trying to work out what I mean, I'd be surprised. One of the greatest minds in the world stumped by Irene Adler…I feel strangely pleased with myself about that. Did you not notice the way I tried to avoid the police at all costs? The fact that I knew a criminal and was able to lend him a huge pile of cash, but you had no idea what my job was? I don't think you even asked. Had you not realised that the necklace I wore when I came to visit you was almost exactly like the one that had gone missing from the British Museum last month? And did you never consider the fact that I borrowed that Ferrari without asking and probably never intend to give it back? After all, it is a very nice car. Don't you see it yet Sherlock? I'm surprised you didn't work that out from when you first saw me, but perhaps you were just distracted – I'm a criminal! Always have, always will be. I get my money from committing crimes and helping others commit crimes, I try to avoid getting too much blood on my hands, but if I do ever get arrested robbery and money laundering won't be the only things I'll be put on trial for._

_I hope you understand that now you know this, I won't be able to see you again. It's far too risky, you have a close connection with the police and I've already had someone try to persuade me to kill you. And even though you pretend you don't have one, I know you have a good heart and I've seen that you'll always do what's right, so you'll probably find yourself at the police station as soon as you read this, telling them all about me. Please don't go too over the top, I like my secrecy and my freedom, and I'll like to keep it that way._

_Don't think I don't feel sad writing this letter. I never stay in relationships long, and for the first time in my life, I wish that wasn't so._

_Perhaps one day we'll see each other again, but I doubt it._

_What else can I say? I'm sorry._

_IR_

"That's it!" Sherlock said suddenly, throwing down the letter and folding his arms in frustration. "I was right all along, women are nothing but distractions, they're no good for me," he shot John a warning glance, "I advise you keep away from them."

"Why? What did the letter say?" John asked.

Sherlock didn't reply. He wasn't about to tell him that between the moment he had passed out in the car, to the moment they had managed to wake him up and get him inside the hospital, all he had been thinking, dreaming about were Irene Adler's eyes. They were so beautiful, but he had never taken the time to notice them. And now he would never see them again. Watson can just think that Sherlock's a sore loser and doesn't like loosing the ability to read people, he doesn't have to know what he truly thinks of Irene Adler.

"Well at least it's all over now," John said quietly into the silence, as if he was trying to brighten Sherlock's mood. It didn't work.

"None of this would have happened if it wasn't for me." Sherlock grumbled, suddenly angry. "None of this should have happened, no one deserved any of this. I've hurt you and I could have stopped it from happening. Both of us could have been killed. I should have known that Moriarty wasn't dead, I should have been more wary, I should have taken more notice of the things and people around me. But I didn't and it's all my fault!"

There was another, this time stunned, silence. A few patients and a nurse looked in their direction, all wondering what the fuss was about.

"It's not your fault Sherlock," John said calmly, he had never seen Sherlock act so…human.

"Yes it is, you know it is." Sherlock snapped.

"It's just one of those things that happens. You can't blame yourself." John told Sherlock firmly. "None of it's your fault."

"Really?" Sherlock raised an eyebrow, "none of it?"

"None." John confirmed.

"So if you find human fingers in the cutlery draw, that's not my fault?" Sherlock suggested.

John raised and eyebrow and did not look happy. "Why would there be human fingers in the cutlery draw?" He demanded.

"It's an experiment." Was all Sherlock said, "they've actually been there in quite a long time now...I should really take them out."

John took a deep breath and tried not to feel annoyed, or queasy. "Well this time tomorrow you can go back to your weird experiments," he told Sherlock, "and everything can go back to normal. As normal as they can be anyway. And as long as you tidy up once in a while, I think I might be happy about that." He added.

"Really?" It seemed that Sherlock didn't really believe what John had told him. "Everything can go back to normal?"

"As normal as they can be, and why not?"

Sherlock nodded in agreement, but stayed silent, staring down at the letter. He would have liked it if just one or two things had changed, but there was nothing he could do about that now. He could feel John's eyes staring down at him, concerned, so he looked up and gave the most convincing smile he could. Sherlock didn't like change anyway; perhaps everything would work out for the best.

At the other end of the ward, a nurse who wasn't really a nurse, watched Sherlock and John carefully as they talked, she pretended to work in her stolen uniform with her stolen clip board, but found herself staring at the two men on the other side of the ward. When she saw Sherlock smile she smiled back with her blood red lips. That was the only thing she needed to see.

Without looking back, Irene Adler turned and left the ward, throwing the clipboard down and throwing the nurses uniform into the nearest bin she could find, revealing her normal clothes underneath. She left the hospital, stepping out into the wide world where, for the first time in what felt like weeks, the air was warm and the sun was shining brightly once more.

The End

* * *

_So, that's the end of the story everyone! I must admit it's not my best work, and the amount of dialogue I have in it is enough to drive _me _crazy! But nonetheless I hope you enjoyed reading :)_

_Is it too much to ask for one more review from you? I know I pester, but I do love reviews and hearing what people think of the story! And I didn't get many reviews last time I put it up, so please? A BIG thank you to all those who did review, and of course those who favourited and alerted, I hope I did not disappoint! :)_

_And if you enjoyed this story, I currently have a book, Poppy Girl, on sale on the kindle! Check out my profile to find out more details, you don't have to have a kindle to read it and you can download the first part for free so you can decide if it's worth buying! And of course I have other fanfics as well, Sherlock and non-Sherlock, feel free to check them out, but take a look at Poppy Girl too, because you never know, it may be on the shelves one day! ;)_

_Well, I think that's all from me for now folks! Although I'm sure this won't be the last Sherlock story I'll write! I'm certainly looking forward to the new series, it's going to be a blast! _

_If you're reading this before 25th December, have a very Merry Christmas everyone! And if you're reading this after, have a great 2012! :)_

_Naisa_

_x_


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